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Rumsfeld faces angry Congress
07/05/2004 07:27 - (SA)
Washington - US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld goes before irate members of Congress Friday to answer questions about a prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq that sparked calls for his resignation and compelled President George W Bush to make a public apology.
In a rare public expression of displeasure on Thursday, Bush blamed Rumsfeld for keeping him in the dark about graphic photographs of abuse of Iraqi prisoners before they were aired on April 28 on CBS television.
But the president rejected mounting calls for Rumsfeld's resignation, giving him a measure of political cover as he goes before armed services committees in the House and Senate to explain what happened.
"He's an important part of my cabinet and he'll stay in my cabinet," Bush said.
Many members of Congress are incensed that they were not informed ahead of time of the severity of the abuse cases that came to light last January in Iraq.
Six soldiers have been charged in the case, and six officers and non-commissioned troops have received career-ending reprimands.
Bush said he scolded Rumsfeld on Wednesday when they met at the White House.
"I told him I should have known about the pictures and the report," he said.
There were signs that some Republican lawmakers were closing ranks around Rumsfeld.
"Let's not shoot down a member of the president's team who is an effective warfighter," said Representative Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
But other Republicans kept up their fire.
"I don't presume to tell the president what he should do. But it's obvious that there's a lot of explaining that Secretary Rumsfeld and others have to do, including why Congress was never informed as to this," said Senator John McCain.
"Why apparently it was known in many places throughout the administration that these kinds of activities were going on. Why there were murders being investigated that we were not told about. And also why there is not decisive action being taken as we speak," he said.
A string of Democrats called for Rumsfeld's resignation.
"No other action, no other words, would send as strong a signal to the world that the United States is serious about fixing what is wrong in Iraq," said Representative James McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusets
Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will testify before Hunter's committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee.
A key question is the scope of the abuses in military-run detention facilities and whether the Abu Ghraib case points to a problem with the system as a whole.
The probes may have implications for the indefinite detention of suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners in Guantanamo.
- AFP
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