ABU GHRAIB, Iraq --Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, on a trip to Iraq shrouded in secrecy, said yesterday that abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison were a body blow for all of us and those in the wrong would be punished.
Rumsfeld flew to this notorious prison by helicopter in a dust storm with an entourage of the nation's top military officers, including Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers.
The people who engaged in abuses will be brought to justice
the defense secretary said. The world will see how a free and democratic society functions.
Rumsfeld's trip was designed to contain the growing controversy about U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners, as depicted in more than 1,000 photographs that have come to light.
The commander of Abu Ghraib, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, accompanied Rumsfeld on a tour of the prison, which once held opponents of Saddam Hussein's government. The group also drove around the compound in an armored bus. They passed dozens of Iraqi detainees who lined the boundary of the outdoor camp, marked by rolls of concertina wire, aware from the heavy security that someone important was passing. Some waved. Some stood without expression.
Miller told Rumsfeld that by the end of May, all prisoners under U.S. control will be moved out of the old prison building. A new complex of outdoor camps will be built on the grounds outside the main prison to provide better living conditions for the detainees.
Talking to reporters earlier yesterday, Miller defended his role in advising U.S. authorities last fall on how to set up a detention and interrogation system that would produce useful intelligence on people involved in the insurgency.
I'm absolutely convinced we laid down the foundations for how you detain people humanely he said. Miller had commanded the U.S. prison compound at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where hundreds of suspected terrorists are still detained from the Afghanistan war.
In Washington, Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he considered some of the activity seen in the photos to be violations of the Geneva Convention and said he was unaware of any guidelines allowing it.
Rumsfeld said the abuses will not happen again and had sullied the reputation of our country.
Back home, President Bush said, I have been disgraced by the scenes of Americans brutalizing Iraqi prisoners.
Rumsfeld said lawyers are advising the Pentagon not to publicly release any more pictures of Iraqi prisoners being abused by U.S. soldiers. He dismissed as garbage any suggestion of a cover-up.
I've stopped reading newspapers Rumsfeld said to the troops here. You've got to keep your sanity somehow. I'm a survivor.
Rumsfeld's trip was not announced in advance due to security concerns. It followed Bush's trip Monday to the Pentagon, where he got an update from commanders in Iraq and expressed his support for Rumsfeld despite calls for his resignation.
The 71-year-old defense chief fiercely defended the Pentagon's response to the revelations. But Rumsfeld also predicted that the abuse controversy would get worse in the days ahead.
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