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Interview with John McCain

Chris Wallace
Fox News: Fox News Sunday
May 21, 2006

WALLACE: Finally, I want to talk to you about the war on terror, which, as you saw, we just discussed with Secretary Rice.

The U.N. Committee Against Torture, an issue that you're very concerned about, says that we should shut down Guantanamo. Last week the attorney general of Britain, our staunch ally, said that Guantanamo is unacceptable. Should we shut it down?

MCCAIN: It's not so much Guantanamo as it is the adjudication of these cases. You know, we seem to focus on the location rather than the situation. The situation is we've got hundreds of people down there, and there's no completion of their case.

I don't think they deserve a fair jury trial, don't get me wrong. But there's got to be some kind of adjudication so that we can decide to keep them for life, or execute them, depending on their crimes, or, if we don't have sufficient evidence, to send them back to whatever country they came from.

And so I think if we could move forward with the process of adjudicating these cases and...

WALLACE: So you, in effect, agree with the Committee Against Torture -- hear we out -- that the idea of this indefinite detention is not right.

MCCAIN: No, I don't think that's right. But I also believe that this administration is working very hard, and it's frustrating, to try to get some type of process so we can make these -- the administration recognizes and we recognize that this is symbolically harmful to America's image in the world, and I'm hoping that we can come up with a methodology and a process to resolve this situation.

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