WASHINGTON — Alberto Gonzales has asserted to the Senate committee weighing his nomination to be attorney general that there is a legal rationale for harsh treatment of foreign prisoners by U.S. forces.

In more than 200 pages of written responses to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who plan to vote today on his nomination, Gonzales told senators that laws and treaties prohibit torture by any U.S. agent.

But he said the Convention Against Torture treaty, as ratified by the Senate, doesn't prohibit the use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading" tactics on non-U.S. citizens who are captured abroad.

Gonzales described recent reports of prisoner abuse as "shocking and deeply troubling." But he refused to answer questions from senators about whether interrogation tactics witnessed by FBI agents were unlawful. And he warned that any public discussion about interrogation tactics would help al-Qaida terrorists by letting them know what to expect when captured.

The committee, with 10 Republicans and eight Democrats, is expected to send Gonzales' nomination to the full Senate today. He would replace Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Several Democrats on the committee are leaning against Gonzales, saying he has been evasive and unwilling to consider that administration decisions in 2002 may have contributed to abuse by U.S. soldiers.

"The position of attorney general and the issues involved in this nomination go to the heart of our nation's commitment to the rule of law," Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said Monday. "A nominee whose record raises serious doubts about his own commitment to that basic principle should not be confirmed."

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the committee's ranking Democrat, called Gonzales' written responses to senators' questions after his Jan. 6 hearing "vague, unresponsive or AWOL."

But Leahy said yesterday there was no reason to delay a vote on sending the nomination to the full Senate. "We'll vote on him one way or another," he said.

As he did at the hearing, Gonzales said in his written responses that President Bush had ordered that torture not be used by the U.S. military or the CIA. He used the definition of torture in U.S. statutes: an act "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering."

But he drew a distinction between U.S. anti-torture statutes and the international Convention Against Torture, which calls on nations to prevent acts of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" that may fall short of torture.

When the Senate ratified the treaty, it defined such treatment as violations of the Fifth, Eighth and 14th Amendments. Because of that provision, Gonzales said, the Justice Department decided that the convention applies only to actions under U.S. jurisdiction, not "treatment with respect to aliens overseas."

Cal Jillson, a constitutional scholar who has followed the careers of Gonzales and Bush since they were in Texas, said Gonzales was following basic Bush administration policy: Don't admit mistakes or re-evaluate decisions.

"They are very loath to reconsider actions in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks," said Jillson, a professor at Southern Methodist University. "The message is, the president never approved of torture; but the question is, did you play with the definition so that almost nothing qualified as torture?"

Some comments from Kennedy and Leahy were provided by The Associated Press.