Judge Michael Mukasey's nomination for attorney general ran into trouble Thursday when two top Senate Democrats said their votes hinge on whether he will say on the record that an interrogation technique that simulates drowning is torture.  

"It's fair to say my vote would depend on him answering that question," Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told reporters late Thursday.  

"This to me is the seminal issue," said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, another member of Leahy's panel. Asked if his vote depends on whether Mukasey equates waterboarding with torture, Durbin answered: "It does."  

Meanwhile, international human rights groups have filed a lawsuit in France against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for allowing torture at detention centres in Iraq & Guantanamo Bay. The groups say that Rumsfeld should be detained when he visits France on Friday for authorizing human rights abuses.