U.S. attorney general to discuss terrorism in Asia

U.S. attorney general to discuss terrorism in Asia

Deborah Charles, Reuters/Washington

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales travels to Asia next week
hoping to explain the U.S. war on terrorism, and said he will
talk about information sharing and joint law-enforcement efforts.

Gonzales departs on Saturday for a weeklong trip to Australia,
Indonesia, Malaysia and China.

"I'm there to listen but I'm also there to try to educate and
inform people overseas about our commitment to the rule of law,"
Gonzales said in an interview.

Gonzales' visit comes amid renewed international scrutiny of
U.S. abuse of foreign detainees and new reports of secret CIA
prisons overseas.

Earlier this week President George W. Bush defended his
government's aggressive action to protect Americans from
"terrorism" but said "we do not torture."

U.S. forces have held hundreds of detainees at known
facilities outside the United States, like the U.S. Naval Base in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The government faced sharp criticism for its handling of
detainees after pictures of guards abusing prisoners at Abu
Ghraib prison in Iraq shocked the world.

Gonzales said the government abided by the law.

"I'm not going to defend," he said. "What I am going to do is
talk about this administration's commitment to our legal
obligations -- we take them very seriously."

"I think (in) our country, unlike other countries, when there
are allegations of wrongdoing ... then there are investigations
and people are held accountable," he added.

Gonzales said he knew people abroad might disagree with the
administration's policy and that he respected "a good healthy
debate" on the issue.

"But we have a clear history of showing that when someone
makes an allegation about a violation of law, including
particularly torture, there is an investigation," he said.

"If people are engaged in unlawful conduct, they're held
accountable."

Gonzales said the recent arrests in Australia of 17 people
believed to have been plotting militant attacks showed that the
threat of attacks was still very real.

"This confirms that the United States and its allies still
confront a very dangerous enemy intent on harming America and our
friends and allies," he said.

"Sharing information is critical. We all have the same
objective and that is to make sure our countries are safe."

Gonzales is likely to be asked in Australia about David Hicks,
an Australian who is a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay. Hicks was
captured with Taliban forces in Afghanistan in late 2001.

Australia said last week the government would investigate
claims of sexual abuse against Hicks after his father and a
former detainee said he was taken from a U.S. warship and abused
in two 10-hour beatings before reaching Guantanamo Bay.

"That's fine," Gonzales said of an Australian inquiry. "If
there are allegations that he was abused I would presume that
those have been investigated by the Department of Defense,
because we'd be concerned about it."

An aide to Gonzales said he decided to visit Jakarta as part
of an effort to encourage continued cooperation with Indonesia --
the world's most populous Muslim nation.

In China, Gonzales will ask Beijing for increased criminal
enforcement of laws protecting the intellectual property rights
of businesses in the United States and elsewhere.