Enlarge By Jack Gruber, USA TODAY Attorney General nominee Eric Holder addresses members of the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday during his confirmation hearing to head the U.S. Justice Department.

The Obama administration, Holder told the Senate Judiciary committee, will "ensure we have interrogation techniques that are consistent" with American values "so we don't do things that serve as a recruiting tool for people who are our enemies."

"Waterboarding is torture," he said, referring to one of the harshest interrogation techniques.

The CIA has used the tactic on at least three terrorism suspects, included alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. In past Senate hearings, Attorney General Michael Mukasey and his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, frustrated senators by repeatedly sidestepping questions about waterboarding.

Holder told the panel that as attorney general he would protect Americans from terrorism while adhering to "the letter and the spirit of the Constitution."

"The decisions that were made by a prior administration were difficult ones. It is an easy thing for somebody to look back in hindsight and be critical of the decisions that were made," Holder said. "Having said that, the president-elect and I are both disturbed by what we have seen and what we have heard."

Holder, a former judge, said that the department would look carefully into whether legal action should be taken against anyone using such tactics.

He also pledged to scrutinize decisions by the department's Office of Legal Counsel, which produced some controversial decisions on wiretapping and torture under the Bush administration.

"No one is above the law," Holder said, but added that he also didn't "want to criminalize policy differences that exist."

In a related issue, Holder said he believes that detainees at Guantanamo should be tried in U.S. courts and not under the type of military commission set up by the Bush administration, unless they are "substantially revamped."

"They simply don't provide due process rights," he said.

Holder, if confirmed, would take over a Justice Department hard hit by the tenure of Gonzales, who resigned amid charges that several U.S. attorneys were fired for political reasons.

Holder said one of his first acts will be to make a "damage assessment" of what harm has been done.

"I want to assure you and the American people that I will be an independent Attorney General," he said. "I will be the people's lawyer."

Otherwise, Holder, 58, acknowledged he had made mistakes in the handling of a Clinton administration pardon and promised to run a Justice Department that is independent and free of politics.

Holder came under sharp criticism for his role, as a top-level Justice Department official, in President Clinton's pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose ex-wife had contributed heavily to the Democratic Party and the Clinton presidential library.

Under questioning by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, Holder acknowledged that he had made mistakes over the pardon and "learned from that experience."

"As perverse as this might sound, I will be a better attorney general for having the Marc Rich experience," he said.

Ranking Republican Arlen Specter, R-Pa., bore in on the issue during his questioning period.

He said it might be possible to "slough it off" if the actions had been taken by someone "not too bright or not too experience."

"But given your reputation, your experience, your background, and your competence, and the surrounding circumstances of President Clinton looking for cover, how do you explain it beyond simply a mistake," Specter asked.

"I do not mean to minimize what I did by calling it a mistake," Holder responded. "I've expressed regret for what I did consistently."

He said his conduct on the Rich matter was not "typical" of how he'd conducted himself throughout his career.

In his opening statement, Holder sought to pre-empt some of the tough questioning by saying that if confirmed, he would run the Justice Department in a "fair, just and independent manner."

"I have made mistakes," Holder said, but vowed that the Justice Department under his watch would serve "not any one president, not any political party, but the people of this great country."

Republican witnesses were also expected to focus on Holder's role in Clinton's clemency offer to 16 members of a Puerto Rican independence group who were convicted of conspiracy and bomb-making charges. Holder recommended pardoning the convicted members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation, a Puerto Rican group known as FALN.

Leahy and other supporters have attested to Holder's independence by citing his probe of former representative Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., who was chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee during the probe. In 1996, Rostenkowski pleaded guilty to mail fraud.

Contributing: The Associated Press, Bloomberg