US senators urge Bush to act on Haditha probe

WASHINGTON - US senators have demanded the Bush administration swiftly establish what happened in Haditha, where US Marines are suspected of killing 24 unarmed Iraqis.

The senators said only rapid action could salvage the image of the military and US international relations.

The Senate Armed Services Committee plans to soon begin hearings on last November's incident in the western Iraqi town and determine whether the military tried to cover it up.

One senator, from President George W. Bush's own Republican Party, insisted US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should be brought to account.

Senator Susan Collins of Maine said the committee must "ask hard questions such as, 'When did Secretary Rumsfeld learn of the allegations?' and 'What action did he take?'"

The senators spoke on the same day a senior US State Department official brushed aside criticism from Iraq's prime minister over the Haditha incident.

"It's a defence mechanism ... I wouldn't make too much out of it," James Jeffrey, the State Department's Iraq coordinator, said of the criticism from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

He said he believed US forces were well-respected in Iraq and Maliki's outburst was to be expected.

"There is a constant buzz in Iraq of what our troops did or didn't do," Jeffrey told a group of defence writers.

Last week, Maliki demanded the United States share files from the investigation of the Haditha killings, which he called a "terrible crime."

Senators just back from a week-long recess blasted the Pentagon for taking months to start a probe of the incident first reported by Time magazine.

Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner wrote to Rumsfeld worried about the impact on US relations "around the world, ongoing military operations, diplomatic initiatives and the struggle of the new Iraqi government to assume full responsibilities of sovereignty."

The Virginia Republican asked Rumsfeld for "the earliest possible date" the Pentagon could provide witnesses.

"We share the senator's concern with respect to obtaining all the facts and agree that individuals and units should not be judged prior to the conclusion of ongoing investigations," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the committee's top Democrat, said the delay in investigating Haditha "further embarrassed the military and put them in a very, very untenable position."

Bush has said he was troubled by news stories about the November 19 killings of men, women and children in Haditha, and a general at the Pentagon said the incident could complicate the job for the 130,000 US troops in Iraq.

- REUTERS