Bush tries to put out fire on prisoners

WASHINGTON – Additional photos of U.S. abuse of Iraqi prisoners emerged as pressure mounted Thursday on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, and the International Red Cross said it had repeatedly asked U.S. authorities to “take corrective action” over the months the abuses occurred.

Trying to calm the anger of the Arab world, President Bush has promised that justice would be served in the investigation into the abuses at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. Bush aides said the president chastised Rumsfeld for failing to tell him about pictures of prisoner mistreatment until after they aired on television.

On Capitol Hill, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, became the first in Congress to demand Rumsfeld’s resignation. He called for Rumsfeld’s ouster “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,” said Harkin, whose statement came as White House spokesman Scott McClellan said President Bush “absolutely” wants his defense secretary to remain in office.

As outrage in the Arab world over the prisoner abuses continued, Bush scheduled an interview with al-Ahram newspaper in Cairo, Egypt. On Wednesday, the president did two interviews with TV networks broadcasting in the Arab world.

As pressure on Rumsfeld mounted, the defense secretary canceled a scheduled appearance at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia and instead sent Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to speak. One Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Rumsfeld decided he needed the time today to prepare for Friday’s Senate hearing.

Six months before he stands for re-election, the prisoner-abuse controversy poses a major problem for Bush, already on the defensive about rising U.S. casualties and persistent violence in Iraq a year after he declared major combat operations completed.

Criticism of the administration’s handling of the prisoner abuse scandal escalated. Citing what it called “the botched handling” of the abuse investigation and his overall decisions about the Iraq war, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said in a Thursday editorial that “Rumsfeld should resign and take his top deputies with him.”

Asked on CBS’ “The Early Show” whether Bush should fire Rumsfeld, Sen. John McCain declined Thursday to “presume to tell the president what he should do.” But the Arizona Republican added, “It’s obvious that there’s a lot of explaining that Secretary Rumsfeld and others have to do, including why Congress was never informed as to this.”

McCain also said the Abu Ghraib prison should be razed because it is a symbol of torture and mistreatment “both from the Saddam Hussein regime and this one.”

In other developments, the International Red Cross said it had repeatedly asked U.S. authorities to take action over reported abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison before the recent revelations. Noting that Red Cross representatives had been visiting the prison and talking privately with detainees, spokeswoman Nada Doumani said in Geneva, “We were aware of what was going on, and based on our findings we have repeatedly requested the U.S. authorities to take corrective action.”

Secretary of State Colin Powell telephoned the head of the International Red Cross, Jakob Kellenberger, on Thursday to assure him the Bush administration was dealing with the reported abuse of Iraqi detainees. “We will answer in a comprehensive way,” Powell told reporters at the State Department.

More photographs of prisoner abuses were revealed by The Washington Post, which said it had obtained a new batch of more than 1,000 digital photos from Iraq. The newspaper said the photos ranged from snapshots depicting everyday military life to graphic images of various kinds of abuse. A front page photo showed a female soldier holding a leash that goes around a naked man’s neck at Abu Ghraib prison. Friends and relatives of the soldier with the leash said the photo must have been staged, the Post said.

Rumsfeld has been summoned by angry lawmakers to testify on Capitol Hill on Friday, while senators – Republicans and Democrats alike – discussed a resolution to condemn the abuses.

The Bush administration has asked Congress for an additional $25 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, while also dealing with the Army’s acknowledgment that at least a dozen deaths at prisons and detention camps remained under scrutiny by criminal investigators.

The CIA’s inspector general also was looking into three deaths that may have involved agency officers or contractors, intelligence officials said. It was unclear how many of these CIA investigations involved the same prison deaths as the military’s investigators, although Army officials said at least one did.

In Iraq, the new general in charge of prisons there apologized for the mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, and troops launched a new offensive against the followers of a rebel cleric.

Bush went on Arab TV on Wednesday and said Americans were appalled by the abuse and deaths of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. soldiers. He promised that “justice will be delivered.”

“The people in the Middle East must understand that this was horrible,” Bush said. He appeared on two Arabic-language television networks to take control of the administration’s damage-control efforts.