Defence chief uses prison visit to back his boys in Iraq

HE MAY not have borne the same physical scars that the victims of his forces displayed, but it was a battered and bruised Donald Rumsfeld who walked into Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison yesterday to assess the damage done by the allegations of the last couple of weeks.

Arriving unannounced by helicopter just hours after United States politicians viewed yet more damaging evidence of the horrors inflicted on those within the walls of the jail, the US defence secretary spent half an hour driving around the site in the safety of an armoured bus.

From their razor-wire compounds, most of the 3,000 prisoners looked on impassively, though a few felt brave enough to risk a shaken fist or a thumbs-down sign.

Mr Rumsfeld has faced down demands for his resignation with his customary bluster, and if he felt any annoyance at the discomfort those in charge of the prison had put him and his political colleagues through, he did not show it.

"We told ourselves that the right thing to do was to come out here and look you folks in the eye," he told the guards gathered in the prison mess hall to meet him.

"In recent months the things that happened at this base happened under our responsibility and it has been a body blow for all of us. Don’t let anyone tell you that America is what’s wrong with the world because it’s not. We will get through this tough period, no doubt about it."

Mr Rumsfeld said he had been "stunned" by the prisoner abuse scandal but Washington’s mission to create a democratic and stable Iraq would succeed in the end and the troops should not be unsettled by criticism.

"I’ve stopped reading the newspapers," Mr Rumsfeld said. Instead, he said, he had turned to a history of the American Civil War, when others, including the president Abraham Lincoln, had faced similarly "vicious" criticisms.

Major General Geoffrey Miller, commander of the prison system in Iraq, told Mr Rumsfeld that a new complex of outdoor camps will open soon on the grounds outside the main prison building.

It will be called "Camp Redemption," he said, at the suggestion of the Iraqi Governing Council. Maj-Gen Miller said all prisoners under US control will have been moved out of the old prison building by the end of this month.

At Abu Ghraib, Mr Rumsfeld was among friends. But back home, the trenchant criticism would not go away. The father of Nick Berg, the young US businessman beheaded earlier in the week, directly blamed Mr Rumsfeld and the US president, George Bush, for his son’s death.

"My son died for the sins of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. This administration did this," he said.

Seething with anger, Michael Berg said his son probably would have felt positive, even about his executioners, until the last minute.

"I am sure that he only saw the good in his captors until the last second of his life. They did not know what they were doing. They killed their best friend," he said.

Two days after the publication of a video showing the execution of his son by five masked men, Mr Berg attacked the Bush administration for its invasion of Iraq and its sponsorship of the Patriot Act, which gave increased powers of surveillance to the federal government. He described the Patriot Act as a "coup d’etat", adding: "It’s not the same America I grew up in."

US intelligence agencies have been analysing the poor quality video since it was published on a website associated with previous al-Qaeda releases. Yesterday they said they believed the killing was the work of senior al-Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. One official said it was "quite probably" Zarqawi who wielded the knife.

"Zarqawi personally is the voice heard on the tape," said an official, adding that "the person whose voice is on the tape is also the person who wields the knife".

The video showed five masked men standing behind Mr Berg. One of them read a statement urging Muslims to seek revenge for Iraqi prisoners abused by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. The masked men then pushed Mr Berg to the floor and one of them sawed the American’s head off with a large knife and held it up to the camera.

The video has stunned the US public, already reeling from the blizzard of images of brutality inflicted on Iraqi prisoners by their own soldiers.

Fresh photographs showing US soldiers brutalising Iraqi prisoners with snarling dogs and forcing them to have sex with each other left members of Congress angry and disgusted, but apparently with few new clues about how widespread the abuse was and who ultimately should be held accountable.

In separate, private screenings on Capitol Hill, House and Senate members saw photographs and video of Iraqi corpses, military dogs menacing cowering Iraqi prisoners, Iraqi women forced to expose themselves and other sexual abuses.

Some lawmakers said the pictures included forced homosexual sex; others said the quality of the photos were too poor to discern what was happening. But the Republican house majority leader, Tom DeLay, said he thought some people were overreacting: "The people who are against the war are using this to their political ends," he said.

The 1,600-plus photos, which included scenes of abuse mixed in with travelogue-type snapshots, were in addition to those depicting abuse and sexual humiliation at Abu Ghraib that had already surfaced publicly.

The photos have created international condemnation and threatened to undermine US military and rebuilding efforts in Iraq.

But Mr Rumsfeld’s trip to Abu Ghraib, where seven US military police reservists are accused of sexually and physically tormenting detainees, will have been seen as a robust answer to those critics who say he should stand down from his post.

In the face of mounting international anger at US conduct in Iraq, General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the soldiers at the prison: "Those who committed crimes will be dealt with and the American people will be proud of it and the Iraqi people will be proud."

As Mr Rumsfeld and Gen Myers toured the sprawling compound, which has been attacked by mortar fire several times, troops manned heavy machine-guns and attack helicopters buzzed overhead.

Far from being contrite, Mr Rumsfeld sought to justify the behaviour of the US army in Iraq, telling those present that one day, when they looked back on their part in the war, they would know it had been worthwhile.

Warning of further difficulties and mistakes in Iraq, he said today’s soldiers would find the same: "One day you’re going to look back and you’re going to be proud of your service and you’re going to say it was worth it."

Abu Ghraib has become a symbol of United States’ failure to win over many Iraqis despite ridding them of the dictator a year ago. With just seven weeks to go until Washington hands sovereignty back to an Iraqi government, it is a serious problem for Mr Rumsfeld.

Yesterday it emerged that a second US soldier will be arraigned next week in Iraq on charges that he abused Iraqi inmates at the prison. Specialist Charles Graner, a member of the 372nd Military Police Company, will be formally charged with maltreatment and indecent acts at a hearing on 20 May.

Graner, 35, is the second soldier to face a court-martial. Specialist Jeremy Sivits will stand trial in Baghdad on 19 May.

Graner’s lawyer expects his client to plead not guilty, and a trial date will be set.

Seven soldiers, including Graner, face criminal charges for the alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners. In photographs published around the world, he is shown standing behind a pile of naked Iraqi prisoners. In one, he is standing arm-in-arm with Private Lynndie England, who is pregnant with his child.

In the US, politicians struggled to take it all in.

Democrat Edward Kennedy said Mr Rumfeld’s visit to Baghdad was too late. "This is just a continuation of disaster after disaster in terms of Iraq policy. We are the most hated nation in the world as a result of this disastrous policy in the prisons," he said.