- In an unprecedented damage-limitation exercise, President
George Bush told Arab TV viewers last night the treatment of prisoners
by some members of the US military in Iraq had been "abhorrent"
and would be thoroughly investigated.
-
- The people of Iraq "must understand that what took
place in that prison does not represent the America that I know,"
he said in an interview with al-Hurra, an Arabic-language channel funded
by the US government.
-
- Though Mr Bush stopped short of a direct apology for
the abuse at Abu Ghraib jail, where prisoners were stripped naked and sexually
humiliated, he continued: "In a democracy everything is not perfect
- mistakes are made."
-
- The perpetrators would be investigated and brought to
justice, he said. "We will do to ourselves what we expect of others."
He contrasted this approach with the attitude of the ousted Iraqi leader,
Saddam Hussein. "His trained torturers were never brought to justice
_ there were never investigations about mistreatment," Mr Bush said.
-
- It was the first time Mr Bush had made direct mention
of the abuse since photographs of gloating US guards and humiliated Iraqi
prisoners surfaced a week ago.
-
- Later, the White House spokesman Scott McClellan used
the word "sorry" half a dozen times. "The president is sorry
for what occurred and the pain it has caused," he said.
-
- The president's media offensive followed critical reaction
around the world to the photographs of prisoners being abused by US soldiers.
-
- In the Middle East the degradation was widely portrayed
as symbolic of American intentions towards the region.
-
- The gravity of the threat posed to the White House, and
Mr Bush's re-election prospects, was further underlined yesterday by the
moderate Republican senator John McCain, who told ABC television he could
not rule out the prospect that the scandal could force the resignation
of the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. Officials said last night that
Mr Rumsfeld, along with the joint chiefs of staff chairman, General Richard
Myers, would testify to a senate committee tomorrow on the torture claims.
-
- Senator Saxby Chambliss, a member of the Senate armed
services committee, told CNN: "I want to know when [Rumsfeld] knew
about this. He will be grilled pretty good."
-
- Mr Bush also faces rising anger in Congress at his administration's
failure to come forward about the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners.
-
- He admitted he first learned of the torture claims in
early January.
-
- Last night the pressure on Mr Bush intensified with a
request to Congress for another $25bn (about £14bn) for US operations
in Iraq and Afghanistan. A request for more money was not expected until
after the election. Meanwhile, new details have emerged of the scale of
abuse by US troops. Pentagon officials are investigating 35 possible instances
of abuse by US personnel, and the Los Angeles Times reported that 25 Iraqi
and Afghan prisoners had died in US custody in the last 17 months.
-
- However, the focus of Mr Bush's efforts yesterday was
public opinion in the Arab world. Edmund Ghareeb, a Middle East expert
at American University, said: "The symbolism of it is devastating.
Some of these abuses have taken place at Abu Ghraib prison where some of
the worst abuses of the Saddam Hussein regime took place."
-
- The president's Arabic TV offensive came two days after
the state department compiled a devastating survey of media coverage of
the Abu Ghraib scandal.
-
- "This Greater Middle East that Washington promises
is not a recipe for democracy, openness, freedom and respect for human
rights; rather, it's a new formula to guarantee US control _ and a way
to keep all Arab regimes humiliated and subjugated," a commentator
in the Palestinian daily al-Ayyam wrote.
-
- The Arab League's ambassador in London, Ali Muhsen Hamid,
said he doubted that Mr Bush's remarks would win over Arab viewers. "They
will not be persuaded, because they don't trust the Americans," he
said.
-
- The first Arabic station to air an interview with Mr
Bush was al-Hurra ("The Free"), which is usually regarded in
the region as a US propaganda vehicle, though the president later spoke
to al-Arabiyya, a satellite channel with more substantial audiences. He
did not speak to al-Jazeera, the most widely-watched Arabic channel. The
Bush administration has persistently accused it of inaccurate and inflammatory
coverage of Iraq.
-
- Few Iraqis appeared convinced of Mr Bush's sincerity.
At the Amir hairdressing salon in Karrada, a busy shopping district in
central Baghdad, there was stony silence among the waiting customers as
the interview was broadcast.
-
- Dhurgan Khalid, 21, an art student, said: "I don't
believe what Bush has promised. I don't believe the people that did this
will go to jail. I don't even believe they will face justice."
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1210520,00.html
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