Bush says interrogations follow law; Democrats claim stonewalling

WASHINGTON — President Bush Friday vigorously defended the government's efforts to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects, and he clashed with Democratic lawmakers over whether he has properly disclosed information about the classified program.

Bush's assertions that the United States "does not torture people" and sticks to U.S. law and its international obligations followed the disclosure by The New York Times of secret Justice Department memos authorizing harsh CIA interrogation techniques, such as head slapping, frigid temperatures and simulated drowning. The memos said such tactics do not violate U.S. or international law.

"The techniques that we use have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of the United States Congress," Bush told reporters. "The American people expect their government to take action to protect them from further attack. And that's exactly what this government is doing, and that's exactly what we'll continue to do."

Bush volunteered his thoughts on a report on two secret 2005 memos.

Meanwhile, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., demanded a copy of a third Justice Department memo justifying military interrogations of terror suspects held outside the U.S.

In a letter to Attorney General-nominee Michael Mukasey, Levin wrote that two years ago he requested — and was denied — the March 14, 2003, legal opinion. Levin asked if Mukasey would agree to release the opinion if the Senate confirms him as attorney general, and cited what he described as a history of the Justice Department stonewalling Congress.

Bush's statement that Congress has been briefed on the interrogation tactics also drew a swift and angry reaction from Sen. John Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

"The administration can't have it both ways," Rockefeller said in a statement. "I'm tired of these games. They can't say that Congress has been fully briefed while refusing to turn over key documents used to justify the legality of the program."

Rockefeller sent a letter Thursday to acting Attorney General Peter Keisler demanding copies of all Justice Department opinions on the CIA interrogation program's legality.

The Bush administration has refused to turn over the documents, contending their disclosure would reveal too much about U.S. interrogation techniques to terrorist groups. One exception came in December 2004, when the Justice Department released a memo decrying torture as "abhorrent" and defining it as acts which "inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering."

CIA Director Michael Hayden, in a memo to agency staff Friday, disputed the suggestion that the Justice Department opinion had opened the door to harsher interrogation practices. He described the CIA's program as "small, carefully run and highly productive."

"Fewer than 100 hardened terrorists have gone through the program since it began in 2002, and, of those, less than a third have required any special methods of questioning," Hayden wrote.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.