Democrats Want Rumsfeld's Head
Back to the Tortured Iraqis Page
Susan Jones, CNSNews.com
Thursday, May 6, 2004Ultimately, the buck stops with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Sen. John Corzine, D-N.J., said in a TV interview Thursday, as a growing number of Democrats (Sens. Tom Harkin and Joe Biden among them) suggested that Rumsfeld might have to resign over the way the Pentagon handled the U.S. humiliation of Iraqi prisoners.
More incriminating photographs taken inside the Abu Ghraib prison have surfaced in recent days, one showing a female soldier holding a leash attached to an Iraqi prisoner's neck.
On Wednesday, President Bush privately scolded Rumsfeld for failing to keep him informed about the brewing scandal.
Press reports quoted one senior White House official as saying, "The president was not satisfied or happy about the way he was informed about the pictures, and he did talk to Secretary Rumsfeld about it."
President Bush did not apologize for the apparent mistreatment of the Iraqi prisoners when he went on Arab television Wednesday. But he did call it "abhorrent."
"It's a matter that reflects badly on my country," he told Al-Arabiya television. "Our citizens are appalled by what they saw, just like the people in the Middle East are appalled." Bush explained that people responsible for wrongdoing would be brought to justice, unlike those in Saddam Hussein's regime.
Sen. John Warner, R-Va., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Rumsfeld would have plenty of questions to answer when he appears before the committee on Friday.
The Washington Times reported that President Bush was scheduled Monday to make a "rare visit to the Pentagon, where he will meet with Rumsfeld on his own turf, receive a briefing on Iraq and make a public statement."
In an interview with the Fox News Channel on Thursday, Sen. Corzine said "accountability" extended beyond the privates and corporals on the ground, all the way up the chain of command to the people in charge.
Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., said he thought some of the criticism seemed to be a little partisan, including calls for Rumsfeld's resignation.
"It seems to me that that's going a step too far," Kyl said. "And I think all of us, in a bipartisan way, have to recognize that this is a huge problem, it has to be dealt with, there does have to be accountability, but let's keep the politics out of it."
Sen. Corzine noted there hadn't been any "direct statement" from the military that "we've stopped or changed" what's been happening in Iraq.
Sen. Kyl said, "I think the real tragedy here is that there were commanders at some level ... who apparently failed to appreciate the huge amount of damage that this activity could do to our effort."
Kyl noted that most U.S. troops conduct themselves with valor. "And it just takes one incident like this to totally undercut the effort. I think there was a failure to appreciate that by somebody on the ground, who didn't pass it up the chain in a way that would suggest that, 'Wait a minute, this is something that could really be big, you all better know about this ...'"
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