Holder: Torture report should be done soon

WASHINGTON, June 18 (UPI) -- A Justice Department report on possible ethics violations by George W. Bush administration lawyers should be ready in a few weeks, the attorney general said.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the department's Office of Professional Responsibility investigators were revising the draft report to include comments from lawyers who were the subjects of the investigation, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

The five-year probe is highly anticipated because its conclusions could provide new information on the interaction between the Bush White House, the Justice Department and the CIA in formulating an enhanced interrogation policy that critics claim included torture, the Post said.

Several lawmakers and interest groups said Holder's "matter of weeks" time frame needs to be shortened.

"The American people have a right to know how the U.S. Justice Department came to issue legal opinions approving acts of cruelty that shocked the world, damaged U.S. moral authority and harmed efforts to combat terrorism effectively," Human Rights First and other activist groups wrote.

Among the time-consuming activities associated with the report is the declassification of some of the information it contains, Holder told the committee.

"One of the things that I think we want to do is to declassify as much of this report as we can so that when people read it ... they'll have a full feeling for what it is our lawyers in the Office of Professional Responsibility dealt with and what is the basis for the conclusions that they reach," Holder said.