Vietnam attacks McCain for 'ill will' toward captors

Vietnam criticized U.S. Sen. John McCain, who is visiting this former South Vietnam capital Friday, for saying he has still not forgiven his captors for killing and torturing fellow prisoners of war.

A statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hanoi said Americans who committed "horrendous crimes" in Vietnam had no right to be critical and described his claims of mistreatment as untrue.

McCain, a fighter pilot in the war, revisited the notorious "Hanoi Hilton" prison in Hanoi on Wednesday. He was held captive there after his A-4 plane was shot down while on a bombing run on the North Vietnamese capital.

Asked how he felt about the prison's guards, McCain said: "I still bear them ill will, not because of what they did to me, but because of what they did to some of my friends - including killing some of them."

Vietnam, which denied McCain's torture allegations earlier this year, issued a stinging statement.

"It runs counter to the norms of morality that those people who brought bombs and shells to sow death among our people and wreak havoc with a country now pass themselves off as having the right to criticize their victims-cum-saviors," ministry spokesman Phan Thuy Thanh said in a statement made available Friday.

Thanh said McCain contradicted statements he made during his first visit to the Hanoi Hilton in 1994 when the senator expressed thanks to Vietnam for the treatment he received as a captive.

Despite his criticism, McCain is a leading advocate of reconciliation between Washington and Hanoi, saying he has long since put the war behind him.

As Vietnam prepares to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the communist victory Sunday, Vietnamese officials also say the bitter past should be laid to rest.

But the statement recalled that the United States initiated a war in which almost 3 million people died and more than 4 million were wounded.

"Our people were the victims of its (American) brutal war of aggression. The Vietnamese nation's losses and suffering are wordless," Thanh said.

Accompanied by wife Cindy and 13-year-old son Jack, McCain went shopping Friday for a traditional Vietnamese tonic - rice liquor with a snake in the bottle - and visited the Harvard Institute for International Development in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly called Saigon.

McCain was captured Oct. 26, 1967. He served 5 1/2 years as a prisoner, including three at the Hanoi Hilton, before being released in March 1973.