WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., defended his opposition to White House-approved terror detainee legislation Sunday.
"This is a matter or conscience, an American conscience," McCain told ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." "Are we going to be like the enemy or are we going to be the United States of America?"
Still McCain said he was confident he and the White House would work out a compromise.
"I still believe that we'll be able to work this out to the satisfaction of everybody concerned," he said.
The differences separating McCain and President Bush deal with Geneva Convention standards for treating prisoners of war, handling classified information and coercing testimony.
The Supreme Court ruled 5-3 in June that military commissions for certain detainees at Guantanamo Bay violated both the military code of justice and the Geneva Convention.
Bush then turned to Congress to find a way of detaining and trying some of the world's most notorious terror suspects.
