The depiction of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners has placed the US on the other side of the human rights issue that has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy for decades.
The photographs that have sparked a firestorm throughout the world have left President George W. Bush and his administration apologizing rather than chastising other countries for human rights abuses. The furor has even prompted a delay in the release of an annual US report concerning human rights.
Confronted with the images showing US soldiers humiliating and tormenting Iraqi men, Bush and other high level officials have been forced to publicly address the problem and take the rare step of admitting American credibility has been badly damaged.
"This is a serious matter," Bush told al-Arabiya on Wednesday. "It's a matter that reflects badly on my country."
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told US-funded al-Hurra that "it will take a long time ... for us to recover."
In apologizing in front of the world, the Bush administration has been remarkably candid and unusually conciliatory in admitting wrongdoing, a tone that contrasts with a perceived arrogance when it addressed the failure to uncover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, for example, or carried out problematic policies that angered other countries.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher on Friday was not shy about telling reporters of concerns raised by close US allies and their skepticism about whether the matter will be properly handled.
"They want to know what we're doing about it," Boucher said. "And they want to know that they can still have confidence in the United States, in the purposes and our ability to handle situations like this and to correct any problems that might arise within our systems."
An especially strong wave of diplomatic backlash has come from European countries, Armitage said in an interview with Cable News Network.
He also confirmed that the second annual report on Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The US Record that was to have been released this past week was delayed because of the "noise level" over the prisoner issue. The report was to have documented actions taken by the US Government to encourage respect for human rights -- a companion report to the annual country reports on human rights practices around the world.
Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have vowed to punish the soldiers responsible for the mistreatment, and Secretary of State Colin Powell said justice will be served in a manner that will be clear to the world.
The democratic process underway in the US, including the six hours of testimony before Congress by Rumsfeld on Friday, has proven to be the only bright spot for the US in the entire affair.
Ironically, citizens of Arabic countries who are so outraged by the abuses live in societies where holding government leaders accountable for their mistakes is not possible -- a point noted by Rumsfeld during the hearings aired on two Arabic networks.
"The world is seeing what a democracy does," he said. "The world is seeing how people who care about human rights behave."
He said the abuses of the detainees were not "a pattern or practice or policy" of the US government, in contrast to the abuses practiced in Iraq under ousted leader Saddam Hussein.
Rumsfeld, who offered his "deepest apology" to the victimized prisoners, has been under fire to resign from many congressional Democrats angry that lawmakers were not informed of the photographs before they became public last week, or of a report completed weeks ago about the abuse.
At the same time, Rumsfeld said that if additional photos in the Pentagon's possession reach the public domain, it could be even more damaging to the US, and warned of the dangers of an additional wave of revelations.
"If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse," he said.
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