US Secretary of State Colin Powell says he does not regret publicly advocating condom use to fight the spread of AIDS and a top aide to President George W Bush said he was simply stating policy.
Powell told CNN's "Late Edition" he had no second thoughts about telling an MTV program last Friday that sexually active youngsters should use condoms to protect against the deadly virus.
"Absolutely not," Powell said. "I was talking to a worldwide audience of 17- to 25-year-olds. I was on 33 MTV channels talking to 375 million households around the world. And the question came to me with respect to sexually active youngsters."
Powell drew fire from conservatives who claimed he was deviating from administration policy when he said condoms were part of the solution to the HIV/AIDS crisis in which some 36.1 million people have been infected worldwide, with 3 million deaths last year, according to the United Nations.
"In my own judgement, condoms are the way to prevent infection and, therefore, I not only support their use, I encourage their use," he said.
Some conservative groups such as Focus on the Family and the Family Research council claimed his comments contradicted the Bush administration emphasis on abstinence as a way to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.
But Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, told CBS's "Face the Nation" program there was no controversy.
"I don't think there's any flap here, and I certainly know that the president doesn't feel that there is," Rice said from Tokyo, where she was accompanying Bush on an Asian trip.
"Secretary Powell was stating what is U.S. policy. First of all, that abstinence is obviously the preferred course, but no one would hope that people who are sexually active would not do so safely," she said.
Powell, who co-chairs a Cabinet-level task force on HIV/AIDS, said the administration believes condoms "are effective and we do have government programs that provide them."
"So we have a comprehensive program that begins with abstinence," he said. "And so I have no apology for the way in which I answered the question."
© Reuters
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