Rumsfeld comes under fire

WASHINGTON, D.C., -- Escalating criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the U.S. military's abuse of Iraqi prisoners raised new questions Thursday as to whether Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would hold on to his job.\nIn an editorial, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch called for Rumsfeld to resign over the "botched handling" of the investigation into the prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and over earlier Iraq war decisions. And, a column in The New York Times by Thomas L. Friedman called on President Bush to fire Rumsfeld "today, not tomorrow or next month."\nAsked about the column, Republican Sen. John McCain told CBS' "The Early Show," "I don't presume to tell the president what he should do, but it's obvious that there's a lot of explaining that Secretary Rumsfeld and others have to do."\nPublicly, President Bush has stood by his defense secretary, though White House aides said he made it clear to Rumsfeld on Wednesday that he was displeased over not learning about the pictures of U.S. soldiers posing with hooded or naked Iraqi prisoners until the images aired on national television.\n"I've got some confidence in the secretary of defense, and I've got confidence in the commanders on the ground in Iraq," the president said during an interview Wednesday with the U.S.-sponsored Al-Hurra television network. Bush promised "people will be held to account" for the prisoner abuses.\nWhether Rumsfeld will be one of those people remained unclear.\nTwo Bush advisers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Thursday that Bush stood firmly behind Rumsfeld despite what one called the "mild rebuke." They said it was important that the Arab world and the American people know that Bush was unhappy with the way he was informed of the prisoner abuse, suggesting that leaking word of the rebuke was a political and diplomatic maneuver rather than a signal that Rumsfeld's job is in trouble.\nRumsfeld himself has deflected questions about whether he should resign. But as the defense secretary prepared for Friday's congressional hearing on the prison abuses, the chorus of criticism gathered strength.\nIn its Thursday editions, the Post-Dispatch called for Rumsfeld's resignation not only because of the prisoner abuses but also because Rumsfeld "seriously underestimated" both the number of U.S. troops needed in the Iraq conflict and the threat from weapons of mass destruction posed by Saddam Hussein's government.\n"It's the accumulation of all these miscalculations, misconceptions and missteps -- and an arrogant inability to admit his mistakes -- that require him to step down," the editorial said.\nRumsfeld was the architect of the Iraq war -- and his department largely controlled the postwar occupation. As that occupation has become plagued by wide-ranging problems, including a stubborn insurgency, the criticism of him has grown. There were complaints that reconstruction contracts were not issued competitively and that there were too few U.S. soldiers on hand to secure the country.\nBut the complaints have crystallized now -- especially among Democrats, but even among Republicans -- over the pictures of prisoner abuse by U.S. forces, and whether the Pentagon informed Congress or the president soon enough about the growing investigations.\n"The Congress ... has been kept completely in the dark," McCain said.\nRumsfeld was to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Friday.\n"Get Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Myers a new job," Ivo Daalder, national security expert at the Center for American Progress, said, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, in his criticism.\n"The notion here that we can somehow deal with this in the normal routines of business ought to be dispensed with," added Daalder, a former senior official at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration and a foreign-policy adviser to former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. "This is something that requires drastic action."\nAlthough the Bush administration has offered few specifics on how far it will take its quest for accountability, it has shown little inclination to go after top Pentagon brass like Rumsfeld and Myers.\nAnd troubles in Iraq don't necessarily translate into trouble for Rumsfeld, said Peter Brookes, diplomacy and national security expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington.\n"Just like in a sporting match, if the game doesn't go the way you want when you take the field, you don't pick up the ball and go home," Brookes said. "You have to adjust your game"