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DUBAI, May 8: His apology was late and the damage done, said Arab and European commentators on Saturday, reacting to US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's testimony before Congressional committees the previous day.
"While he (Rumsfeld) has been in charge, murder, torture and humiliation were heaped on Iraqi detainees almost as a matter of course," the Saudi daily Arab News commented.
"Rumsfeld's apology came too late," said Jordanian analyst Hani Hourani. "I believe Rumsfeld should resign because the torture reflected a widespread policy adopted by the US army in Iraq and maybe Afghanistan as well." political enemies.
Many Arabs and Europeans said he should quit.
Reinhard Buetikofer, chairman of Germany's Green Party, a junior partner in the government, said: "The minister who is responsible for such things must resign: Mr. Rumsfeld".
And Kuwait said the abuses by American soldiers recalled the brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime.
"For us in Kuwait these (abuses) mean a lot of things, and recall the brutal acts by Saddam Hussein's regime in the same prison, Abu Ghraib, which held many Kuwaiti detainees," Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad al Salem al Sabah was quoted as saying.
Arabic newspapers, from Egypt's opposition Al Wafd to Saudi Arabia's semi-official Okaz, showed pictures of Mr Rumsfeld looking troubled with his hands over his face.
The Arab News dismissed Mr Rumsfeld's order for a review of the case.
"Rumsfeld's suggestion that an independent inquiry be set up into what happened is a waste of time, and Iraqis simply do not have time to waste," it said.
"If he resigns without fuss, perhaps he may begin to redeem himself by making a tiny contribution to the restoration of America's good name in the world."
Underscoring emotions in the Arab world, Al Wafd had a picture of a dead Iraqi child with the caption: "The new Mongols massacre the children of Iraq before the eyes of the world".
Of 60,000 respondents to a poll on the Web site of leading Arabic satellite channel Al Jazeera, some 87 percent said the United States would be unable to improve its image among Arabs and other Muslims.
"I used to agree with the American campaign in Iraq, now I'm very reluctant, I don't know if they are fulfilling the purpose they are meant to fulfil anymore," said Suliman Buhaimed of the American University of Kuwait.
Mr Rumsfeld failed to impress ordinary Iraqis.
"Apology is not enough. What they have committed against the Iraqis won't be erased from our memory," Taha Duraib Hussein, 41, a shopowner in Baghdad, said.
BROKEN TRUST: "By committing these atrocities, the Americans have broken the trust between them and the Iraqis and it's very difficult to build it again," Salah Wadie, 30, said.
President George Bush, seeking re-election in November, sought to repair the US image by pledging on Arab television last week that Americans behind the prisoner abuse and killings of detainees would be punished.
EUROPEAN PRESS: A number of European newspapers said the scandal signalled the failure of Bush's Iraq policy.
"If Rumsfeld takes responsibility for what happened in Iraqi prisons, as he declared yesterday in the Senate, his only possibility...is to resign," leading Spanish daily El Pais said.
French left-wing daily Liberation said: "The torture was not the work of a handful of corrupt criminals ... They were really the disciplined cogs of a system ignorant of the Geneva Convention (on treatment of prisoners)."
The conservative German paper Die Welt said: "The former strongman of the Bush government is on the defensive; the calls for his resignation can no longer be ignored."
With six months left before the US presidential race, "will Bush take his distance from a man in free fall who has become more and more a burden for his government?" Die Welt asked.
Germany's Suddeutsche Zeitung suggested the scandal had further undermined the US image in the Arab-Islamic world, noting now "no one is talking about the US bid to stabilize the greater Middle East".
Even German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who heads to Washington on Monday, publicly criticized the torture at the Abu Ghraib prison for the first time in comments released by Der Spiegel.
Calling the pictures "desperate and disgusting", he said the US soldiers involved must be punished, but did not say how far he would push the issue in talks with US counterpart Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
France's respected Le Monde stopped short of urging Mr Rumsfeld's resignation but blasted his "arrogant and authoritarian" team, saying the scandal "is what happens when a power - even democratic - openly considers itself above the law".
"This is the heavy price to pay for the imperial arrogance of the Bush team and its refusal to accept that the rest of the world does not work like the Americans," a Le Monde editorial said.
British papers were more than blunt. In a stinging editorial, the left-leaning Guardian made no bones about calling for the head of 71-year-old Rumsfeld, saying he "is not just America's problem but our problem too".
"There is no greater international priority today than for the United States to prove that it can hear and respond to international anguish over Iraq. That is why America needs a new defence secretary...", the Guardian said.
The Independent gave a litany of US shortcomings in Iraq, stating it was imperative that Rumsfeld "must resign" to help the US "recover its lost authority".
It said Washington's role in Iraq was now become embodied by a grainy photo of a female soldier leading a naked prisoner on a leash. The best way to restore American's reputation would be for US voters to dump Mr Bush over Iraq in the November election, it said.
The Financial Times said Mr Bush "must now get a grip on his unruly team".
"His first task is to cut Mr Rumsfeld down to size. If that means benching his star slugger, so be it," it said.
Influential news magazine The Economist already set the tone on Friday. A full-page editorial entitled "Resign, Rumseld" said when standards drop so law responsibility must be taken. "And if he won't resign, Mr Bush should fire him."-AFP
