Bush apologizes for abuse scandal, rejecting call for Rumsfeld's resignation

US President George W. Bush on Thursday offered his first apology for the humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, but rejected calls by Democratic lawmakers for Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to resign.

At a White House news conference after talking with visiting Jordan's King Abdullah, Bush said: "I told him I was sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi prisoners and the humiliation suffered by their families."

"I told him I was as equally sorry that people seeing those pictures didn't understand the true nature and heart of America," Bush said. "I assured him that Americans like me didn't appreciate what we saw, that it made us sick to our stomach."

Bush on Wednesday gave interviews to two Arabic televisions, saying the abuse of prisoners in Iraq were "abhorrent" practices that does not represent the America he knows. But he stopped short of a formal apology as widely expected.

Bush rejected call for Rumsfeld's resignation at the news conference.

"Secretary Rumsfeld is a really good secretary of defense," he said. "He is an important part of my cabinet, and he'll stay in my cabinet."

As a global furor grew over pictures of abuse of Iraqi prisoners, Rumsfeld is under increasing fire for failing to inform the Congress of the situation timely and to act on repeated recommendations to improve conditions for thousands of Iraqi detainees.

Rumsfeld is scheduled to testify publicly Friday before a Senate committee over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. Several US lawmakers called for his resignation on Thursday, accusing him of cover-up in the abuse scandal.

"I think that Mr. Rumsfeld should step down," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California told reporters. "Mr. Rumsfeld has been engaged in a cover-up from the start on this issue and continues to be so."

Pelosi said when Rumsfeld briefed the members of Congress on Iraq last week, he well knew that the CBS television was going to broadcast photographs of prisoner abuse in Iraq. "And yet he withheld that information from the Congress," she said.

Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat from Iowa, issued a statement demanding Rumsfeld's resignation "for the good of our country, the safety of our troops, and our image around the globe."

"If he does not resign forthwith, the president should fire him," Harkin said in a statement.

Massachusetts Representative James McGovern and Wisconsin Representative David Obey, both Democrats, also called for Rumsfeld's resignation.

Local media reports quoted senior White House officials as saying that Bush admonished his defense secretary Wednesday at a private conversation for failing to take steps early to curb the problem.

Bush is "not satisfied" and "not happy" with the way Rumsfeld informed him about the investigation into abuses by US soldiers at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison or the quantity of information Rumsfeld provided, the reports said.

Bush confirmed the reports at the news conference, saying he told Rumsfeld that "I should have known about the pictures and the report."

Other US officials said Rumsfeld and the Pentagon resisted appeals in recent months from the State Department and the Coalition Provision Authority to deal with problems relating to detainees.

The defense secretary has deplored the reported abuses at Abu Ghraib prison but defended the Pentagon's response, saying military commanders acted promptly to investigate conditions thereafter being alerted in January about the misconduct.

Rumsfeld also has noted that the Pentagon announced the start of the investigation in January and, in March, reported the filling of charges against six enlisted military police soldiers who served as guards.

But the nature of their offenses were not revealed until CBS's "60 Minutes II" program aired photographs last week showing leering US military police taunting Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison and the New Yorker magazine detailed the findings ofthe Army's internal report.

Source: Xinhua