Should U.S. use waterboarding?

WASHINGTON -- The nomination of Michael Mukasey to be our next attorney general has hung up on the issue of waterboarding and whether he would. as the national's chief law enforcement official, act to prevent the U.S. from using the practice to extract information from prisoners.

Torture is considered a war crime by the international community and waterboarding has been banned by the U.S. military, but CIA interrogators are believed to have used the technique on terror detainees as recently as a few years ago.

Mukasey has refused say whether waterboarding should be defined as torture, though he has called the practice personally "repugnant." The retired judge has said, if Congress passes a law banning waterboarding, "the president would have absolutely no legal authority to ignore such a law."