In an unprecedented damage-limitation exercise, President George Bush told Arab TV viewers on Wednesday night the treatment of prisoners by some members of the US military in Iraq had been ”abhorrent” and would be thoroughly investigated.
The people of Iraq ”must understand that what took place in that prison does not represent the America that I know,” he said in an interview with al-Hurra, an Arabic-language channel funded by the US government.
Though Bush stopped short of a direct apology for the abuse at Abu Ghraib jail, where prisoners were stripped naked and sexually humiliated, he continued: ”In a democracy everything is not perfect … mistakes are made.”
However, the tone of of his address was apologetic.
The perpetrators would be investigated and brought to justice, he said. ”We will do to ourselves what we expect of others.” He contrasted this approach with the attitude of the ousted Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein. ”His trained torturers were never brought to justice … there were never investigations about mistreatment,” Bush said.
It was the first time Bush had made direct mention of the abuse since photographs of gloating US guards and humiliated Iraqi prisoners surfaced a week ago.
Later, the White House spokesperson Scott McClellan used the word ”sorry” half a dozen times. ”The president is sorry for what occurred and the pain it has caused,” he said.
The president’s media offensive followed critical reaction around the world to the photographs of prisoners being abused by US soldiers.
In the Middle East the degradation was widely portrayed as symbolic of American intentions towards the region.
The gravity of the threat posed to the White House, and Bush’s re-election prospects, was further underlined yesterday by the moderate Republican senator John McCain, who told ABC television he could not rule out the prospect that the scandal could force the resignation of the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. Officials said last night that Mr Rumsfeld, along with the joint chiefs of staff chairman, General Richard Myers, would testify to a senate committee tomorrow on the torture claims.
Senator Saxby Chambliss, a member of the Senate armed services committee, told CNN: ”I want to know when [Rumsfeld] knew about this. He will be grilled pretty good.”
Bush also faces rising anger in Congress at his administration’s failure to come forward about the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners.
He admitted he first learned of the torture claims in early January.
Last night the pressure on Bush intensified with a request to Congress for another $25-billion for US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. A request for more money was not expected until after the election. Meanwhile, new details have emerged of the scale of abuse by US troops. Pentagon officials are investigating 35 possible instances of abuse by US personnel, and the Los Angeles Times reported that 25 Iraqi and Afghan prisoners had died in US custody in the last 17 months.
However, the focus of Bush’s efforts yesterday was public opinion in the Arab world. Edmund Ghareeb, a Middle East expert at American University, said: ”The symbolism of it is devastating. Some of these abuses have taken place at Abu Ghraib prison where some of the worst abuses of the Saddam Hussein regime took place.”
The president’s Arabic TV offensive came two days after the state department compiled a devastating survey of media coverage of the Abu Ghraib scandal.
”This Greater Middle East that Washington promises is not a recipe for democracy, openness, freedom and respect for human rights; rather, it’s a new formula to guarantee US control … and a way to keep all Arab regimes humiliated and subjugated,” a commentator in the Palestinian daily al-Ayyam wrote.
The Arab League’s ambassador in London, Ali Muhsen Hamid, said he doubted that Bush’s remarks would win over Arab viewers. ”They will not be persuaded, because they don’t trust the Americans,” he said.
The first Arabic station to air an interview with Bush was al-Hurra (”The Free”), which is usually regarded in the region as a US propaganda vehicle, though the president later spoke to al-Arabiyya, a satellite channel with more substantial audiences. He did not speak to al-Jazeera, the most widely-watched Arabic channel. The Bush administration has persistently accused it of inaccurate and inflammatory coverage of Iraq.
Few Iraqis appeared convinced of Bush’s sincerity. At the Amir hairdressing salon in Karrada, a busy shopping district in central Baghdad, there was stony silence among the waiting customers as the interview was broadcast.
Dhurgan Khalid (21) an art student, said: ”I don’t believe what Bush has promised. I don’t believe the people that did this will go to jail. I don’t even believe they will face justice.” – Guardian Unlimited Â