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US works to calm prisoner abuse fallout
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-05-11 14:40

Americans can expect more shocking photos and searing public debate as the Bush administration works to calm the firestorm over U.S. soldiers' abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

U.S. President Bush, left, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, right, emerge from a military briefing in the Defense Secretary's office suite at the Pentagon May 10, 2004. [AP]

U.S. Senators scheduled another hearing Tuesday with top military and intelligence officials, including Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, author of a Pentagon report that found numerous "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" at a U.S.-run prison complex near Baghdad.

Stephen Cambone, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, was among those scheduled to testify later in the day as the committee delved into "chain of command" issues in the prison abuse cases.

The hearing was set up Monday, to follow last Friday's, as the Pentagon agreed to disclose as-yet unreleased photos and at least one video to the Senate Armed Services Committee. The administration would not say whether it would allow the public to see them.

Senators and the Pentagon were working late Monday to determine when and under what circumstances lawmakers would view the material. It was part of what Taguba said were numerous photos and videotapes taken by troops of sessions of abuse at the Abu Ghraib complex.

A Democratic Senate aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the committee's chairman, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., and its ranking Democrat, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, were asked to come up with a plan to allow senators to view the pictures and videos as early as Tuesday.

Lynndie England is pictured in her 2001 senior portrait from Frankfort High School in Short Gap, West Virginia. England was identified as being pictured in some of the recently released images taken at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. The scandal exploded last week with the release of photographs showing grinning uniformed personnel posing in front of naked detainees. One photograph that first appeared in the Washington Post May 6, depicted a naked Iraqi on his knees with a leash around his neck that was held by an American servicewoman, identified as England.[Reuters]

Warner has said he wants declassification of as much of the material as possible so that it can be shown to the American public. The Senate aide said the Pentagon will retain control over the material and decide how to handle further releases.

Any viewing by senators would be restricted to a secure room in the Capitol to protect against leaks that might violate the privacy of prisoners or endanger the prosecution of any military personnel charged in the case, according to several officials.

Still, several lawmakers said they expected the photos and videos eventually would become public.

"Sooner or later they're going to have to be released," said Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan. He predicted they would come out piecemeal if the administration does not release them on its own.

Warner asked Senate lawyers to review legal implications of the Senate's receiving the images from the Defense Department. He was to announce Tuesday how the committee would obtain the images, said his spokesman, John Ullyot.

In Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross said U.S.-led coalition intelligence officers had told it that up to 90 percent of Iraqi detainees were arrested by mistake.

A 24-page Red Cross report also cited abuses, some "tantamount to torture," including brutality, forcing people to wear hoods, humiliation and threats of imminent execution.

U.S. President Bush visited the Pentagon Monday, saw some of the photos and issued a strong endorsement of embattled Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. "You are doing a superb job," Bush said.

Bush was shown more than a dozen photos, not yet seen by the public, which depicted scenes of U.S. troops abusing Iraqi prisoners, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

"The president's reaction was one of deep disgust and disbelief," he said.

Amid indications of waning public confidence in his senior military ranks and declining credibility abroad, Bush went to the defense headquarters for what officials said was a previously scheduled briefing.

The session took on new significance because of the leak of photos of abuse and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers.

Bush spoke to reporters just outside Rumsfeld's office and twice ignored questions of whether the photos and videos should be made public.

Vice President Dick Cheney, who called Rumsfeld during the weekend the best secretary of defense ever, also was there. Others at the war council session were Secretary of State Colin Powell; CIA Director George Tenet; Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen. Peter Pace, Joint Chiefs vice chairman; and Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces from the Horn of Africa to Central Asia, an area that includes Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bush said, "All prison operations in Iraq will be thoroughly reviewed to make certain that such offenses are not repeated."

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