McCain: No compromise on torture ban

updated 2:02 p.m. ET Dec. 4, 2005

WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain, a prisoner of war who was tortured in Vietnam, said Sunday he will refuse to yield on his demands that the White House agree with his proposed ban on the use of torture to extract information from suspected terrorists.

“I won’t,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” when asked whether he would compromise with the Bush administration. He is insisting on his language that no person in U.S. custody should be subject to “cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment.”

The Arizona Republican said he had met several times with the president’s national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, on the issue, and both McCain and Hadley said Sunday they were working toward an agreement.

Hadley, on ABC’s “This Week,” repeated President Bush’s assertion that the United States does not torture and follows international conventions on the treatment of prisoners.

He added, “We’re trying to find a way ... where we can strike the balance between being aggressive to protect the country against the terrorists, and, at the same time, comply with the law.”

“We’re working it. We’re not there yet,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

McCain, while saying he would not compromise on the torture language, said they were in discussions “about other aspects of this to try to get an agreement.” He did not elaborate.

McCain, a Navy flier who was captured by the North Vietnamese and tortured during the Vietnam War, sponsored an anti-torture measure that has passed the Senate by a 90-9 vote.

But the White House said it could not accept restrictions that might prevent interrogators from gaining information vital to the nation’s security and has threatened a presidential veto of any bill that contained the McCain language.

McCain noted that intelligence gained through torture can be unreliable and he said the practice hurts the U.S. reputation abroad.

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