Bush rejects calls to sack Rumsfeld: Lawmakers seek Congress inquiry
WASHINGTON, May 5: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld came under fire on Wednesday from members of Congress irate at his handling of an image-tarnishing Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal
, prompting the White House to rush to his defence.
President George W. Bush "absolutely" still has confidence in Rumsfeld, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters. The spokesman deflected questions about whether the defence secretary should resign with a curt "No."
Lawmakers on Tuesday slammed the military's handling of the scandal with some demanding a Congressional investigation into Defence Department actions. The US military has already launched five separate inquiries into the humiliation and abuse of Iraqi detainees.
But Carl Levin, the top Democrat on the armed services committee, said Congress must launch its own probe into events at the 4,500-inmate Abu Ghraib prison. "I don't think we can assume that all the investigation that is necessary is going on," he said.
"I think we have a very heavy responsibility of oversight in the Congress, to make sure that there is a thorough investigation, that there is no cover up." While the White House and Defence Department insisted that those responsible would be punished, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator John Warner, summoned Defence Department officials to appear behind closed doors.
Rumsfeld also went on television talk shows to promise investigations and defend the Defence Department's performance amid an international uproar that shows no sign of subsiding a week after CBS television aired shocking photographs of naked Iraqi prisoners in humiliating poses.
Though the allegations of abuse were first made in January, the secretary confronted the issue publicly for the first time only on Tuesday. Members of Congress from both parties were incensed that they had been kept in the dark for months about the gravity of the situation.
"Who is in charge? Who has made these decisions? Why have there not been any sound decisions made recently," Senator Joe Biden, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asked Wednesday on NBC television.
Biden, who charged that Bush had been "ill served" by the Pentagon, was asked whether he was suggesting Rumsfeld should resign. "I sure am," he said. "If it goes all the way to Rumsfeld, then he should resign." -AFP
