Bush calls Iraq prisoner abuse wrongdoing of a few

10.00am

WASHINGTON - US President George W Bush sought on Saturday to quell worldwide outrage over the abuse and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by the US military, calling the acts the "wrongdoing of a few."

Bush's comments in his weekly radio address came a day after embattled US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned in congressional testimony that more damaging images of mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners might be published.

Rumsfeld apologised for the abuse of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. But the apology, like one from Bush on Thursday, failed to calm anger in the Arab world.

"Apology is not enough. What they have committed against the Iraqis won't be erased from our memory. The Rumsfeld apology is nothing but a media manouvere," said Taha Duraib Hussein, 41, a shop owner in Baghdad.

Photographs in the media last week showed US soldiers grinning as they posed with naked Iraqi prisoners shown in humiliating positions.

"What took place in that Iraqi prison was the wrongdoing of a few, and does not reflect the character of the more than 200,000 military personnel who have served in Iraq since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom," Bush said.

The president's description of the extent of wrongdoing conflicted with an International Committee of the Red Cross report that mistreatment, sometimes close to torture, was rife and may have been condoned by US forces.

In the Democrats' weekly radio address, retired General Wesley Clark said the abuse had cost the United States credibility and undermined an already troubled military mission.

"This is a mission in trouble," the former presidential candidate and Nato commander said.

The acts of physical and sexual abuse have led a number of prominent Democrats, including presidential candidate John Kerry, to call for Rumsfeld to step down.

A report in The New York Times on Saturday quoted a person close to White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice as saying the president and Rice were leaving options open on Rumsfeld.

"He appears to have become a liability for the president, and has complicated the mission in Iraq," the person close to Rice was quoted as saying.

Yet other Republicans said dumping Rumsfeld would be out of character for Bush, who prides himself on loyalty, and might also fuel further Democratic attacks on Bush's Iraq policies.

Rumsfeld has brushed aside calls for him to leave his job, but he told Congress he would "resign in a minute" if he thought he could not be effective.

He said the scandal may escalate if photographs and video of abuses not yet public surface in the media.

Seven in 10 Americans believe Rumsfeld should not resign, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll of 802 people conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, before Rumsfeld's congressional testimony.

The scandal has inflamed anti-US sentiment in the Middle East and could make it more difficult for the United States to achieve its goal of "democratisation" in Iraq.

Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad al-Salem al-Sabah said the abuses at the prison, which served as a torture centre under deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, recalled the brutality of Saddam's rule.

"For us in Kuwait, these (abuses) mean a lot of things, and recall the brutal acts by Saddam Hussein's regime in the same prison, Abu Ghraib, which held many Kuwaiti detainees," he was quoted as saying in newspapers on Saturday.

Bush repeated his belief Americans were liberators in Iraq. He said the scandal was a stain on US honour and pledged to fully investigate prisons in Iraq to determine the extent of the problem and punish those responsible.

He did not mention Rumsfeld in his address, but a White House spokesman said the president called his defence secretary on Friday to praise him for his testimony.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq