Americans can expect more shocking photos and searing public debate as the Bush administration works to calm the firestorm over US soldiers' abuse of Iraqi prisoners.
Senators have scheduled another hearing yesterday with top military and intelligence officials, including Army Major General Antonio Taguba, author of a Pentagon report that found numerous "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" at a US-run prison complex near Baghdad.
Stephen Cambone, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, was among those scheduled to testify as the committee delved into "chain of command" issues in the prison-abuse cases.
The hearing was set up on Monday to follow last Friday's meeting as the Pentagon agreed to disclose as-yet unreleased photos and at least one video to the Senate Armed Services Committee. The administration would not say whether it would allow the public to see them.
Senators and the Pentagon were working late on Monday to determine when and under what circumstances lawmakers would view the material. It was part of what Taguba said were numerous photos and videotapes taken by troops of sessions of abuse at the Abu Ghraib complex.
A Democratic Senate aide said the committee's chairman, Republican Senator John Warner, and its ranking Democrat, Senator Carl Levin, were asked to come up with a plan to allow senators to view the pictures and videos as early as yesterday.
Warner has said he wants declassification of as much of the material as possible so that it can be shown to the US public. The Senate aide said the Pentagon would retain control over the material and decide how to handle further releases.
Any viewing by senators would be restricted to a secure room in the Capitol to protect against leaks that might violate the privacy of prisoners or endanger the prosecution of any military personnel charged in the case, several officials said.
Still, several lawmakers said that they expected the photos and videos eventually would become public.
"Sooner or later they're going to have to be released," said Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts. He predicted they would come out piecemeal if the administration did not release them on its own.
Warner asked Senate lawyers to review legal implications of the Senate receiving the images from the Defense Department. He was to announce yesterday how the committee would obtain the images, spokesman John Ullyot said.
In Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross said US-led coalition intelligence officers had told it that up to 90 percent of Iraqi detainees were arrested by mistake.
A 24-page Red Cross report also cited abuses, some "tantamount to torture," including brutality, forcing people to wear hoods, humiliation and threats of imminent execution.
US President George W. Bush visited the Pentagon on Monday, saw some of the photos and issued a strong endorsement of embattled Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
"You are doing a superb job," Bush said.
Bush was shown more than a dozen photos, not yet seen by the public, which depicted scenes of US troops abusing Iraqi prisoners, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.
"The president's reaction was one of deep disgust and disbelief," he said.
Amid indications of waning public confidence in his senior military ranks and declining credibility abroad, Bush went to the defense headquarters for what officials said was a previously scheduled briefing.
The session took on new significance because of the leak of photos of abuse and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers.
Bush spoke to reporters outside Rumsfeld's office and twice ignored questions of whether the photos and videos should be made public.
Vice President Dick Cheney, who last weekend called Rumsfeld the best secretary of defense ever, also was there. Others at the session were Secretary of State Colin Powell; CIA Director George Tenet; General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; General Peter Pace, Joint Chiefs vice chairman; and General John Abizaid, commander of US forces from the Horn of Africa to Central Asia, an area that includes Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bush said: "All prison operations in Iraq will be thoroughly reviewed to make certain that such offenses are not repeated."
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