Bush Says U.S. Owes Rumsfeld 'Debt of Gratitude'
Mon May 10, 2004 02:22 PM ET
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush strongly backed Donald Rumsfeld on Monday and said America owed him a debt of gratitude, countering calls by Democrats for the defense secretary to resign over his handling of the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.
Meanwhile, the independent Army Times newspaper, widely read in the U.S. military, on Monday rebuked Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for "a failure of leadership," adding that accountability might mean "relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war."
After a meeting with Rumsfeld, U.S. military leaders, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and other administration officials at the Pentagon, Bush told Rumsfeld, "Thank you for your leadership. You are courageously leading our nation in the war against terror."
"You're doing a superb job. You're a strong secretary of defense and our nation owes you a debt of gratitude," Bush said.
Leading Democrats have demanded Rumsfeld resign or Bush fire him amid revelations of abuse and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by Americans at Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad. Republican lawmakers said such calls were unjustified or at least premature.
Congress is further keeping the pressure on to get to the bottom of the scandal. On Tuesday the Senate Armed Services Committee will question Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, the Army general who wrote a report outlining the abuses.
In his report completed in March, Taguba cited the "systematic and illegal abuses of detainees," and said between October and December 2003, "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees."
CONGRESS KEEPS ON PRESSURE
Bush visited the Pentagon three days after Rumsfeld spent six hours testifying before congressional committees about the scandal, with numerous tense exchanges with Democrats and his fellow Republicans.
An administration official said last Wednesday that Bush had privately expressed annoyance to Rumsfeld over his handling of the scandal in which Bush learned about the severity of the abuse only when CBS television broadcast photographs of it.
But Bush last Thursday rallied publicly behind Rumsfeld, saying he would remain in the Cabinet. Rumsfeld said he would resign if he felt he was not effective but would not step down "simply because people try to make a political issue out of it." Continued ...
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