For a House Judiciary Committee hearing focused on a somber subject - whether methods used to interrogate al-Qaeda plotters amount to torture - the four hours of testimony included moments of humor and repeated problems pronouncing the names of terror suspects.

At one point, Ashcroft said he was so moved by the give-and-take with Bush administration colleagues he was near "standing up and singing the national anthem."

At the heart of the hearing was whether U.S. interrogators acted legally in using harsh tactics on captured terror suspects - including waterboarding - in the years immediately after 9/11. Waterboarding involves strapping a person down and pouring water over his cloth-covered face to create the sensation of drowning. Critics call it torture.

Ashcroft was attorney general when he approved two Justice Department legal opinions in 2002 and 2003 that, essentially, approved the use of waterboarding and other harsh methods so long as they did not "cause pain similar in intensity to that caused by death or organ failure."

Both memos were written, in part, by former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo. Ashcroft agreed to withdraw both memos a few years later after his advisers said they were concerned that the legal reasoning behind them overstepped the limits of executive authority.

"My philosophy is that if we've done something that we can improve, why would we not want to improve it? Why would we not want to adjust it?" Ashcroft told the committee, noting that he had relied on Yoo and other Justice Department lawyers to give him good advice when he first approved the opinions.

He added: "It wasn't a hard decision for me to - when they came to me, and I came to the conclusion that these were genuine concerns - get about the business of correcting it."

Responded Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D., Calif.): "There seems to be the Constitution, and the Constitution as Mr. Yoo thinks it should be. And the two are remarkably different."

Yoo, now a professor at Berkeley School of Law, declined to respond yesterday.

Republicans on the panel argued that waterboarding and other harsh tactics yielded information that may have saved lives, and Ashcroft did not disagree. He also said he does not believe waterboarding or any of the methods allowed under the memos amounted to torture. Both the CIA and the Pentagon two years ago banned its interrogators from waterboarding suspects.

"There have been many direct attacks that we're aware of have been foiled by our interrogation process," said Rep. Elton Gallegly (R., Calif.). "Had we not used those, would the probability of another attack not only be a probability but a certainty?"

"It could well have been," Ashcroft answered.

Judge Rules War-Crimes Trial At Guantanamo Can Begin

The first war-crimes trial

at Guantanamo Bay can begin Monday, a federal judge ruled, saying that courts should let the military process play out as Congress intended.

The decision is a victory for the White House, which plans to use military panels to prosecute terrorism suspects.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson yesterday rejected an effort by Osama bin Laden's former driver, Salim Hamdan, to postpone his trial.

Hamdan hoped to capitalize on a June Supreme Court ruling, which said Guantanamo Bay prisoners can challenge their detention in federal court.

Hamdan was captured at a roadblock in Afghanistan in November 2001, allegedly with two surface-to-air missiles in the car. He could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted of conspiracy and supporting terrorism.

At Guantanamo Bay, military prosecutors said the ruling gave them more confidence that the trials would go forward against 80 detainees, including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

- Associated Press