Bush: Questions to Mukasey on torture "unfair"

By Caren Bohan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush defended on Thursday his attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey, who has come under fire from Senate Democrats for refusing to say whether an interrogation technique that simulates drowning is illegal torture.

"I believe the questions he's been asked are unfair," Bush said in an Oval Office session with reporters. "He's been asked to give opinions of a program -- or techniques of a program -- on which he has not been briefed."

Bush's effort to win Senate confirmation for Mukasey has run into trouble as Democrats have criticized his refusal to reject the widely denounced interrogation technique known as waterboarding, or simulated drowning, as unlawful torture.

Bush later linked the debate to his declared war on terrorism and suggested that senators were hampering his administration's ability to pursue suspected terrorists by failing to swiftly approve Mukasey, a retired judge and former prosecutor.

"This is no time for Congress to weaken the Department of Justice by denying it a strong and effective leader," Bush said in a speech to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Critics have accused the United States of torturing suspects in the war on terrorism, with the CIA reportedly using waterboarding after the September 11 attacks.

Despite Bush's assurances that he prohibits torture, it is unclear how detainees are treated since he refuses to disclose interrogation techniques.

"There's an enemy out there. I don't want them to understand, to be able to adjust one way or the other," Bush told reporters. "The American people have got to understand the program is important and the techniques used are within the law."