Washington ? With just three words, Attorney General-designate Eric Holder capped years of angry debate over U.S. counterterrorism policy and declared a major break from the Bush administration.

“Waterboarding is torture,” said Holder, President-elect Barack Obama’s pick to run the Justice Department.

Holder’s blunt response to the first question at his confirmation hearing Thursday was one that many on the Senate Judiciary Committee had sought after years of frustrating nonanswers on the subject from Attorney General Michael Mukasey and his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales.

The 57-year-old former prosecutor, who would become the nation’s first black attorney general, pledged to shut down the U.S. naval prison in Cuba in part by sending detainees to trial in the United States, and restore the Justice Department’s reputation of independence from political interference.