McCain: Don't Probe Kerry's Atrocities

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who says the Bush administration needs to come clean about the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal as quickly as possible, said Monday that he didn't think it was a good idea to investigate Sen. John Kerry's admission that he committed war crimes in Vietnam.

"I just hate to keep going back and revisiting the Vietnam War over and over again," McCain told radio host Sean Hannity when asked if Kerry and his supporters weren't being hypocritical in calling for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's dismissal over the Iraq prison flap.

"The very people who are so up in arms who are calling for Don Rumsfeld's head are supporting a guy who admits to burning down villages of innocent civilians," Hannity pressed. "So, I mean, is there an inconsistency there?"

McCain responded meekly, "I'm sure that there is."

After listening to audio from a 1971 interview where Kerry admitted he violated the Geneva Convention in Vietnam, McCain said he didn't think the issue was worth investigating given the strife it would cause.

"There's still so many of our veterans who feel so emotional about this issue that it digs up all of this controversy," he explained.

The Arizona Republican was far less timid about questions on whether Secretary Rumsfeld knew that Iraqi detainees were being abused at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Asked if he didn't agree that Rumsfeld had been a strong defense secretary, McCain equivocated.

"I agree with all of that but there is one strong caveat, OK?" he told Hannity.

"And that is let's find out what the chain of command was, who gave the orders, who, if anybody, instructed these guards, what was their relationship with the interrogators, what was the story with the private contractors - all of those things have to be cleared up."

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