Kerry says Bush is responsible

2004-05-07 17:38

Washington - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, raising the tone of his criticism in the Iraq prisoner-abuse scandal, readied a call on Friday for President George W Bush to take personal responsibility, his spokesperson said.

Spokesperson Stephanie Cutter said the Massachusetts senator, campaigning in the states of Arizona and Louisiana, would declare that "responsibility should go right to the top" in the widening scandal. She did not elaborate.

The Democrat renewed on Thursday his months-old demand for Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign, and indirectly chided the Republican president for not taking responsibility in the affair.

Campaigning in California, he evoked his past as a decorated Naval officer in the Vietnam War and said in his time "the captain always took responsibility" like John Kennedy did for the 1961 failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

"As president, I will not be the last to know what is going on in my command. I will demand accountability from those who serve, and I will take responsibility for their actions", Kerry said.

Bush has publicly rebuked Rumsfeld for not informing him sooner of the magnitude of the scandal triggered by photographs of US soldiers humiliating hooded and naked Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad.

But the president, who said he learned about the photographs only when he saw them on television last week, has vowed to keep his defence chief despite mounting calls in Congress and the press for Rumsfeld's resignation.

Kerry reiterated on Thursday that "these despicable actions" have not only tarnished the United States' image around the world, but have "endangered the lives of our soldiers, and they have, frankly, made their mission harder to accomplish".

A day earlier, the candidate recalled that he urged Rumsfeld's ouster months ago "based on his miscalculations with respect to Iraq and based on the lack of a plan to win the peace".

On Thursday, Kerry told a reporter the call still stood, according to Cutter.

Bush and Kerry are running neck and neck in the campaign ahead of the November 2 election but polls show the president's approval ratings falling to new lows and that a majority of Americans disapprove of his handling of the Iraq occupation.

- AFP