Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell has voiced his strong opposition to a plan by his ex-boss US President George W. Bush to change the way "war on terror" suspects are interrogated and tried.
Powell sent a letter to Republican US Senator John McCain condemning the administration's plan to relax the standards for treatment of terror suspects, which would allow tougher questioning of detainees, while protecting US interrogators from being prosecuted for war crimes.
"I do not support such a step and believe it would be inconsistent with the McCain amendment on torture which I supported last year," Powell wrote, in a letter made public Thursday by McCain....
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McCain, a maverick Republican senator and former Vietnam prisoner of war, has joined with other leading members of his party in bucking administration efforts to change rules governing detainee treatment, which are covered under Article Three of the Geneva Conventions.
Powell, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in his September 13 letter to McCain lent his voice to their cause.
"The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. To redefine Common Article Three would add to those doubts," he wrote.
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