WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Attorney General Janet Reno is meeting at this hour on Capitol Hill with a bipartisan group of senators -- hosted by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott -- to answer questions about her weekend decision to seize Elian Gonzalez from the home of his Miami relatives.

"Lott wants to hear from the attorney general herself how she got to the place where she decided to use the action she chose and why such force was brought to bear," said John Czwartacki, the senator's spokesman. "And he is inviting senators who have questions of bipartisan concern."

Reno approved the raid after efforts to negotiate a peaceful handover of Elian failed. Among the issues under debate is whether the attorney general should have continued the talks instead of ordering the armed seizure.

Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder and Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner are also expected to attend Tuesday's meeting, to which 10 senators -- five Republicans and five Democrats -- were invited.

Lott, a Mississippi Republican, has not called for Senate hearings on the issue yet, but his spokesman says this meeting could determine whether they will be held.

"I want to ask questions with respect to the use of force," Sen. Connie Mack (R-Florida) told CNN Tuesday morning.

"Can anyone really justify the use of force, breaking into a family home at the point of a gun, ripping a little 6-year-old boy away and then say afterwards that they're proud of the operation, and that it was in the boy's best interests? Give me a break," Mack said.

Mack indicated that he believes it was the government who was not negotiating "in good faith," and instead resorted to resolve the custody issue in a violent manner.

"The question is whether this government should use force to remove a 6-year-old boy from a family home in America. That's the question. And I think it is outrageous. I think it is horrifying to tell you the truth, that we would use excessive force like that," Mack said.

"This is a legal issue. This is a question about custody. These are not armed criminals, and that's the way they were treated. And I find that terrifying that that would take place in the United States of America."

White House press secretary Joe Lockhart continued to vigorously defend the government's action Tuesday, calling the raid the "only alternative."

"I think they need to understand, as they get more information they will understand that we had no other choice," Lockhart said.

"For three months we gave the Miami relatives every opportunity to follow the law and allow the custody of the young boy to be with the father and at every turn they frustrated the process, they moved the goalposts and we were left on Saturday with only one alternative," he added.

Besides Mack, Republicans senators invited to the meeting are Orrin Hatch of Utah, Bob Smith of New Hampshire, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, and Spencer Abraham of Michigan.

Democratic senators invited were Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, Bob Graham of Florida, Pat Leahy of Vermont, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, and Robert Torricelli of New Jersey.

The session will take place in a room usually reserved for hearings or meetings of a classified nature.

Czwartacki claimed they chose that room simply for lack of space anywhere else, even though he said the majority leader wanted to keep the meeting small.

Congressional inquiry underway

Hatch, who serves as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote Reno Monday requesting documents and other information regarding the agency's actions with regard to the search warrant of Lazaro Gonzalez' home.

"Please immediately provide the Judiciary Committee copies of all documents related to the application for the search warrant issued on April 21, 2000, including but not limited to, any affidavits or memoranda filed in support of the application and the transcripts of any hearing or proceeding conducted with regard to obtaining this search warrant," Hatch wrote.

And on the House side, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Illinois) on Monday launched a preliminary inquiry into the raid that spirited Elian away from the home of his Miami relatives and into the arms of his father.

"In response to the request of the speaker of the House, I have directed the House Judiciary Committee staff to begin a preliminary inquiry into the tactics employed in the seizure of Elian Gonzalez by federal authorities," Hyde said in a statement released Monday.

Hyde said the inquiry will focus on whether the use of force was necessary or appropriate, and he would base his decision on whether to hold subsequent hearings on the results of the review.

"A decision whether to hold hearings will be based on the information developed during this review. I am hopeful that the Attorney General will cooperate fully by making all necessary documents and personnel available to the committee," Hyde said.

That seemingly tentative approach may be due to the fact that the public supports the return of the boy to his father. A CNN/Gallup poll conducted Saturday indicated that nearly 60 percent of those polled supported the government's action, and Republicans may simply be reluctant to appear on the wrong side of family values.

News of the congressional inquiry came shortly after House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois) called for congressional hearings on the matter, and after a weekend of scathing criticism of the raid by congressional Republicans -- including accusations that Immigration and Naturalization Service officials acted recklessly and without authority when they forcibly removed the boy from his great-uncle's home.

The White House strongly disputed that charge on Monday.

"The attorney general acted with great patience," Lockhart insisted. "Ultimately the problem was that the Miami relatives refused to respect the law."

Lockhart explained that the raid was conducted reluctantly and only after the Miami family continued to resist coordinated efforts to reunite the boy with his father, and after hinting that there might be guns in the house or out in the crowd. Elian's cousin, Marisleysis, had intimated that there were more than just cameras in the house, Lockhart said.

"This was done responsibly, carefully. It was a limited operation that took less than three minutes with eight people," an adamant Lockhart said Monday. He added that now was the time for everyone to act responsibly and "take a deep breath," and "to try to separate the facts from the fiction."

"The most important piece of information here is all of this could have been avoided," Lockhart said. "None of this had to happen. This happened because the family did not respect the legal process here that dictated that the father should be reunited with the young boy."

The raid, and in particular the Associated Press photo of a federal officer armed with an MP-5 automatic rifle confronting a terrified Elian in the arms of the fisherman who pulled him from the sea last November -- Donato Dalrymple -- sparked immediate calls for congressional hearings from Republicans in both the House and Senate.

But Lockhart gave assurances that the raid was conducted with a search warrant, and added that it was unfortunate that some in Congress were searching for "some perceived political gain here."

Lockhart's comments came after an emotionally charged weekend where the 6-year-old's Miami relatives flew to Washington and demanded to see the boy, who was staying with his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, at Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland. The relatives, who have said they will stay in the area until they see the boy, have claimed that photos of what appeared to be a smiling Elian with his father were somehow doctored.

"The family made the absolutely absurd argument that somehow the photos that were released Saturday were doctored, that it wasn't really the boy," Lockhart said.

"I think people who are saying things now are, by their own comments, undermining their own credibility," he said. "There are a number of prominent Republicans who have come out and just made what I have to view as wild statements," he noted, adding: "Tom DeLay went on television yesterday and said there was no search warrant. That is factually not true."

DeLay, a Texas Republican who is the House majority whip, was one of several members of Congress who have called for a congressional investigation. Hastert released a statement Monday calling for House Judiciary Committee hearings to explore the "Clinton-Gore Justice Department's tactics."

"It is nonsense for the Attorney General to say she had no more options," Hastert said in a statement written Saturday. An aide to Hastert said the speaker was upset by the first Associated Press photographs released Saturday morning after the raid.

But as the political fallout from the raid begins to take shape, a senior administration official signaled an aggressive White House posture, telling CNN, "If they want to hold hearings and attack legitimate law enforcement, we are happy to let them take that position."

The official added: "If they want hearings to explore this, then the responsibility will rest with them when we have no choice but to focus on things that have not been put into the public debate about the environment the boy was living in."

"You bet there'll be congressional hearings," DeLay said Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press. "I think both branches, the legislative branch and the judiciary branch, should look into this in depth, because this is a frightening event, that American citizens can expect that the executive branch on their own can decide whether to raid a home."

Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner said a warrant for the action was obtained from a judge on Friday night while negotiations with the Miami Gonzalez family were ongoing. Meissner and officials at the Justice Department said the operation was perfectly legal.

The Justice Department has since released copies of the warrant to quell speculation that the raid was carried out hastily and without appropriate authority.

Sen. Specter on Sunday also called for congressional hearings, saying: "There were some alternatives here." "I hope it never happens again, but I think there are lessons to be learned. I think the Justice Department should have acted earlier."

'We did what we had to do'

Justice Department officials -- including the attorney general -- continued to explain their actions Monday on early morning television news shows.

"We tried and tried" to effect the handover of the boy to his father in a peaceful manner, Reno said on NBC's "Today Show." "We were told that we would have a deal if we did certain things, and we did it, and it evaporated."

Reno explained that she tried to avoid using armed agents to remove the boy from the house "with all my heart and soul." But, after several attempts to reach a deal with the Miami relatives failed, "we did what we had to do."

But attorney Aaron Podhurst, who was acting as a mediator in Miami, disputed the assertion that negotiations had broken down.

"I do not agree that we weren't close to a settlement. I believe everybody was acting in good faith," Podhurst said during a Monday afternoon news conference. "And I had believed we had made substantial progress."

"It was never our feeling that we had an agreement, a basic agreement, as to when the child would be transferred, where he would be transferred, the length of time that the transition would take," Holder, the deputy attorney general, said during an appearance on ABC's "Good Morning America." Holder said that if hearings are held, he looks forward to testifying.

"I think people should understand that although there was a great show of force during that raid, there was never a great use of force -- a very, very major distinction," Holder said.

"People, if you'll remember, were criticizing the attorney general three or four days or so ago for not acting. Now she's being criticized for taking what was a decisive action," Holder added.

And Meissner said on CBS's "The Early Show" that the INS agents "did exactly what is called for in standard law enforcement practice for an action like this."

"An enforcement operation like this is frightening," she said. "That's exactly why we worked so hard to prevent it and why the attorney general herself was involved at many points along the way to try to get a cooperative transfer between the families."

Defensible -- and defensive -- actions

Some members of Congress -- including Sen. Leahy -- defended the operation to remove Elian from the Miami home.

"I am sorry that they had to go in after him this way, but I don't know what choice the attorney general had," Leahy said Saturday. "The father actually had custody, legal custody of this child for the last nine days. The relatives in Miami would not give him up."

Elian's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez had refused an INS order to surrender the boy at a Miami-area airport earlier this month. That prompted the INS to revoke the great-uncle's temporary legal custody of Elian and transfer it to his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez. Nine days later, early on Saturday morning, Reno ordered the raid.

Carole Florman, a spokeswoman for the Department of Justice, said Monday that the Miami relatives tried to block agents despite promises that they would not interfere if the INS came for Elian.

According to Florman, agents reported that the front door of the house was opened for an Associated Press photographer just as the agents' minivans pulled up in front of the house. The door was then locked and a couch was jarred against the door, she said.

Florman said it took three attempts to ram through the door because the couch was in the way. Florman said an unidentified member of the Cuban-American National Foundation locked the back door of the house while Elian was hustled to an inner room which was also locked shut.

Elian was found on November 25 floating alone in an inner tube off the coast Florida, a survivor of a shipwrecked voyage from Cuba that left his mother and 10 others dead.

CNN White House Correspondent Kelly Wallace, CNN Senior White House Correspondent John King, CNN Congressional Correspondent Chris Black and The Associated Press contributed to this report.