US apology fails to calm world anger; official says abuses continue

By: Sultan Ahmed

DUBAI: Muslim, Arab and European commentators said on Saturday while reacting to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that his apology was late and the damage done. They asked Rumsfeld to resign from his office, and separately more allegations of abuse emerged just as US President Bush was seeking to quell the scandal.

Rumsfeld took responsibility on Friday for abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US troops and offered his “deepest apology” to victims during US Senate hearings broadcast live in the Arab world as well as the United States. But Rumsfeld said he would not resign just to satisfy his political enemies.

Arabic newspapers, from Egypt's opposition al-Wafd to Saudi Arabia's semi-official Okaz, showed pictures of Rumsfeld looking troubled with his hands over his face.

A number of European newspapers said the scandal signaled 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).”

Meanwhile, Iraq's former human rights minister Abdul Basset Turki in an interview with French weekly Le Journal de Dimanche released ahead of publication Sunday said that abuses of Iraqi prisoners had been going on at all US bases since the occupation began, with some taking place as recently as last week. Turki had resigned one month ago over US military action in Falluja.

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Rumsfeld takes responsibility for Iraq jail abuse

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Friday assumed full responsibility for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US personnel and offered his “deepest apology” to the victims in the face of partisan demands that he step down or be fired.

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