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World Calls for Rumsfeld's Resignation Over Abuse
By Robert Barr
The Associated Press
Saturday 08 May 2004
Outrage over Iraq prison photos increase pressure, condemnation of U.S. actions.
London - The image of a U.S. soldier holding a leash attached to a naked Iraqi prisoner brought more condemnation of the United States on Friday, and some calls for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
The picture of the soldier, Spc. Lynndie England, appeared on several front pages in Britain. "No sadistic movie could outdo the damage of this image," reporter Robert Fisk wrote in The Independent newspaper.
Much comment focused on Rumsfeld.
"The departure of the Pentagon's bellicose hawk would certainly be good news because it would give the moderate wing, represented by (Secretary of State Colin) Powell, an opportunity to reorient U.S. foreign policy toward multilateralism," Madrid's El Mundo newspaper said.
"Responsibility for what has occurred needs to be taken, and to be seen to be taken at the highest level, too," Britain's Economist magazine said. "It is plain what that means. The secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, should resign."
The Sueddeutsche Zeitung said Rumsfeld's resignation "would be a sign of the humility he has previously lacked," but insufficient to address the crisis.
"The political damage for the United States is so immense that even Donald Rumsfeld's resignation would not offset it. But a political sacrifice would be an especially credible signal that the American administration is serious about its protestations and is upholding the values it is trying to impart in Iraq," the newspaper said.
Though not joining the resignation calls, Berliner Zeitung commented on Rumsfeld's description of the abuse as "un-American."
"It speaks of the presumptuousness with which the Bush administration views the rest of the world. It is that consciousness of 'God's own nation,' the unique and chosen nation that has the right to proselytize other nations with its idea of morality and law, democracy and justice," Berliner Zeitung said.
The scandal had provoked a cry of despair from Boris Johnson, a Conservative Party member of Britain's Parliament who supported the war.
"How could the American Army have been so crass, so arrogant, so brutal as to behave in this way?" Johnson wrote in The Daily Telegraph.
"Was this really the operation I had voted for? Did I really think, when the House of Commons voted to support the American action on March 18, 2003, that it would be carried out with such boneheaded stupidity?"
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Rumsfeld Finds Himself in a Sorry Mess
By Alan Freeman
Globe and Mail, Canada
Saturday 08 May 2004
Washington - Supremely self-confident, unabashedly ideological and frequently abrasive, Donald Rumsfeld is not the kind of man who easily admits to being sorry.
The 71-year-old U.S. Defence Secretary did just that yesterday before a Senate committee investigating abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops. He clearly didn't enjoy it.
In more than four decades in and out of Washington's corridors of power, the man known as Rummy has developed a reputation as a single-minded political operator who brooks no criticism and has little time for second thoughts.
"He's the most ruthless man I ever met," former secretary of state Henry Kissinger said in an oft-quoted remark. "And I mean that as a compliment."
One of Rumsfeld's Rules, the booklet-sized collection of quotes and guiding principles from the Defence Secretary's years in politics, reads: "If you are not criticized, you are not doing your job." Another says: "If in doubt, don't. If still in doubt, do what's right."
Such hard-nosed attitudes made him popular among right-wingers and a star of the Bush administration. But for many abroad, he came to personify the arrogance of U.S. foreign policy.
When France and Germany refused to endorse Washington's plan to invade Iraq last year, it was Mr. Rumsfeld who dismissed both as part of "old Europe," in contrast to the "new Europe" including U.S. allies such as Poland and Italy.
He later clashed with his own commanders over strategy in Iraq, arguing that U.S. success in Afghanistan proved that similar campaigns could be conducted with smaller numbers of troops than the generals wanted. While the strategy initially worked, the insurgency has stretched U.S. forces and forced Mr. Rumsfeld to go back repeatedly for more money and soldiers.
A native of Chicago, he graduated from Princeton University, where he was captain of the college wrestling team. After three years in the navy, he worked on the campaigns of two friends who were running for the Republicans. Then, at the age of 29, he ran for Congress and won.
As a right-wing Republican, he became close to president Richard Nixon, first heading the Office of Economic Opportunity and then heading to Brussels as U.S. ambassador to NATO.
After Mr. Nixon resigned, he was appointed chief of staff to president Gerald Ford and in 1975, at only 43, was named defence secretary, the youngest man ever to hold the job. In his second round at the same job, under President George W. Bush, he became the oldest person in the post.
In the intervening 25 years, Mr. Rumsfeld managed to spin through the revolving door between the bureaucracy and the private sector on a couple of occasions, becoming chairman of a pharmaceutical company and a high-tech firm - and a wealthy man.
He rapidly aborted a 1988 bid for the presidency. But rather than retire with his millions to his New Mexico ranch, Mr. Rumsfeld preferred to return to government in 2001 with his conservative friends, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Pentagon aides Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle.
Even more than President Bush, he became synonymous with Washington's war on terror and its occupation of Iraq, appearing in almost daily news briefings with his original, often entertaining use of the English language.
Asked about the fate of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Mr. Rumsfeld responded, "We do know, of certain knowledge, that [he] is either in Afghanistan or in some other country or dead."
The Plain English Campaign in Britain awarded him its annual Foot in Mouth Award last year for the following statement: "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knows; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know."
The quips were less forthcoming yesterday - perhaps because he knew his job was on the line.
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