Phil Taylor's papers
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BACK TO : PROPAGANDA AND THE GWOT Year 3 - 2004 (mainly Iraq)
Rumsfeld Accepts Blame and Offers Apology in Abuse by T Shanker & E Schmitt 
Rusfeld accepts Blame and Offers Apology in Abuse By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT NYT, Published: May 8, 2004 ASHINGTON, May 7 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld offered an unambiguous apology Friday to Iraqis abused by their American military jailers. He said he accepted full responsibility for the misdeeds of soldiers on his watch but would not resign simply to quiet partisan critics. Advertisement "So to those Iraqis who were mistreated by members of the U.S. armed forces, I offer my deepest apology," Mr. Rumsfeld said as he began a marathon day of testimony on Capitol Hill, much of it televised live on all major networks. Lawmakers called back-to-back hearings to examine cases of detainee abuse that have ignited world outrage and brought Mr. Rumsfeld a personal scolding from President Bush. "It was inconsistent with the values of our nation, it was inconsistent with the teachings of the military to the men and women of the armed forces, and it was certainly fundamentally un-American," Mr. Rumsfeld said. Mr. Rumsfeld also took responsibility for failing to tell Mr. Bush and Congress about the developing scandal, saying, "I failed to recognize how important it was to elevate a matter of such gravity to the highest levels, including the president and the members of Congress." Having said that, Mr. Rumsfeld also warned that investigators had more pictures, and even videos, of a "sadistic, cruel and inhuman" nature. "It's going to get still more terrible, I'm afraid," Mr. Rumsfeld said. The defense secretary revealed that he was seeking official compensation for detainees whose abuse included being forced to strip, pile onto each other and simulate sexual acts. And he announced that a special panel would be given 45 days to examine "the pace, the breadth, the thoroughness of the existing investigations and to determine whether additional investigations or studies need to be initiated." In a brief interview after the House hearing late Friday, Mr. Rumsfeld identified three people who had agreed to be on the panel: Charles Horner, a retired Air Force general; James R. Schlesinger, a former defense secretary; and Tillie Fowler, a former Republican congresswoman from Florida. All three are members of the Defense Policy Board, an advisory panel to the secretary. Mr. Rumsfeld said he might add a fourth member. None of the senators and representatives who spoke during the hearings openly called on the defense secretary to resign, as some had expected. It was unclear whether that was a result of Mr. Rumsfeld's acceptance of full responsibility for the misdeeds, or a political decision reached in caucuses convened by his Congressional critics in advance of the Senate and House Armed Services Committee hearings. Even so, the question of whether he would continue leading the Pentagon was something Mr. Rumsfeld admitted he had "given a lot of thought to" since the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison became public. "Needless to say, if I felt I could not be effective, I'd resign in a minute," he said. "I would not resign simply because people try to make a political issue out of it." Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, pressed Mr. Rumsfeld on whether his resignation might not help cauterize the wounds to America's image. "Even though you weren't personally involved in the underlying acts here, would it serve to demonstrate how seriously we take the situation - and therefore help to undo some of the damage to our reputation - if you were to step down?" Mr. Bayh asked. Mr. Rumsfeld replied tersely, "That's possible." The morning session was interrupted by protesters who held up banners and chanted: "Fire Rumsfeld! For war crimes!" They were escorted from the hearing room by Capitol Hill police. All or most of the morning session was broadcast live by CBS, ABC and NBC while CNN showed the entire day's events. During six hours of testimony, Mr. Rumsfeld ranged from humble and contrite to combative and self-assured. His calm demeanor held until late in the Senate hearing, when he made a show of looking at his watch as questioning threatened to run into time set for the House session on the opposite side of Capitol Hill. Likewise, the final moments of a three-hour House session also tried Mr. Rumsfeld's patience. When Representative Kendrick B. Meek, a Florida Democrat, began describing the role of American forces around the world, Mr. Rumsfeld cut him off: "You don't need to tell me where the troops are. I know." The sharpest verbal dual on Friday involved the usually calm Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Senator Mark Dayton, Democrat of Minnesota, who accused General Myers of trying to suppress news by calling the CBS news program "60 Minutes II," in an effort to delay broadcast of the pictures. "This was not to suppress anything," General Myers said. "What I asked CBS News to do was to delay the release of the pictures given the current situation in Iraq, which was as bad as it had been since major combat ended, because I thought it would bring direct harm to our troops. It would kill our troops." Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, the committee chairman, criticized Mr. Rumsfeld for not informing Congress of the abuse scandal - or at least not beyond the official public announcements of the investigation and of the filing of charges, which did not convey the depraved level of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, told reporters outside the hearing room of the unseen photos, "We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience - we're talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges." Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said the abuse scandal dimmed the prospects of success in Iraq. "Our troops are less secure and our nation is less secure because these depraved and despicable actions will fuel the hatred and the fury of those who oppose us," he said. Representative Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican, told Mr. Rumsfeld, "This is a political and public relations Pearl Harbor." Mr. Rumsfeld revealed that while he had known of the existence of the photographs, he had not until Thursday night viewed any but those broadcast by television or printed in newspapers and magazines. "It is the photographs that gives one the vivid realization of what actually took place," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "Words don't do it. The words that there were abuses, that it was cruel, that it was inhumane, all of which is true, that it was blatant, you read that and it's one thing. You see the photographs, and you get a sense of it, and you cannot help but be outraged." A senior Defense Department official said that Army investigators possessed several hundred pictures as part of the investigation, but most do not depict Iraqi prisoner abuse. The vast majority are pornographic pictures involving only American soldiers, the official said. Mr. Rumsfeld said he wished he had been able to bring the abuse to the attention of Mr. Bush and Congress, but described being hobbled by concerns over "command influence." He said any actions by senior Pentagon or military officials to call public attention to alleged abuses could be cited by defense lawyers as judging guilt in advance of the conclusion of legal proceedings. Mr. Rumsfeld sparred with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who questioned the management and control at Abu Ghraib prison, in particular whether intelligence officers who ran the interrogations were put in charge of the military police. He pressed for a description of the role of private contractors involved in intelligence-gathering at Abu Ghraib. When Mr. Rumsfeld tried to turn the question over to Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, deputy commander of American forces in the Middle East, Mr. McCain cut him off. "No, Secretary Rumsfeld, in all due respect, you've got to answer this question," Mr. McCain said. Several times during the two hearings, Mr. Rumsfeld battled with lawmakers over the role of military intelligence, and whether the jailers were ordered to abuse detainees to make them more compliant during interrogations. In the debate over whether the abuse was the action of a handful of misguided soldiers who betrayed their service's codes and ethics, several lawmakers also asked whether commanders should be punished with more than reprimands for the failure to adequately supervise and discipline their subordinates. Some lawmakers also asked whether the role of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib had been cleared by Mr. Rumsfeld or his senior intelligence adviser. Mr. Rumsfeld said that the military today held 7,000 to 8,000 detainees, down from a total of 43,671 that had been captured in Iraq. |