IRAQ: The US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, flew into the eye of an Iraqi storm yesterday, dropping in unannounced at Abu Ghraib prison to tell troops that the torture scandal there would not wreck the US's mission in Iraq.
Tackling head-on an issue that threatens his own future and President Bush's efforts to ensure a stable, pro-US government in Baghdad, Mr Rumsfeld spent seven hours in the Iraqi capital and toured Saddam Hussein's notorious former jail where seven US soldiers have been accused of abusing detainees.
"In recent days there's been a focus on a few who have betrayed our values and sullied the reputation of our country," the Secretary of Defence told a "town hall" meeting on the main US base where whooping soldiers responded to his efforts to bolster morale. "Like most Americans I was stunned. It was a body blow."
Mr Rumsfeld, President Bush and others are trying to confine the damage to the seven military police reservists charged over photographs showing soldiers sexually and physically tormenting detainees. But the Red Cross and others say they warned the Pentagon months ago about systematic torture in Iraq.
The Secretary of Defence sought to allay concerns among the troops about extended tours of duty, mounting combat losses and fears the war might in the end be unwinnable. Although no one in uniform uttered the word, some critics are already comparing Iraq to Vietnam.
Quoting Abraham Lincoln that US democracy was the "last best hope for mankind", Mr Rumsfeld delved back to an even earlier conflict for solace, the very much bloodier American Civil War.
He confessed to shutting out bad news by joking that he no longer reads the newspapers and is studying a Civil War history.
Noting the "vicious" criticism that Lincoln and fellow leaders suffered during years of bloody stalemate, he said that when Civil War soldiers looked back "they knew it had been worth it".
He said there would be more mistakes to come in Iraq but assured a cheering new generation of American fighting troops: "One day you're going to look back and you're going to be proud of your service and you're going to say it was worth it."
During his half-hour tour of Abu Ghraib in an armoured bus, most of the 3,000 prisoners kept in razor-wire compounds looked on impassively, but some shook fists or gave thumbs-down signs.
"We told ourselves that the right thing to do was to come out here and look you folks in the eye," Mr Rumsfeld told US guards in the prison mess hall after meeting Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller, the new commander in charge of jails in Iraq.
Gen Miller was brought in from Guantanamo Bay a few weeks ago to restore order to the US prisons in Iraq. He is also becoming a figure of some controversy, however.
With just seven weeks to go until Washington hands sovereignty back to an Iraqi government, Abu Ghraib has become a symbol of US failure to win over many Iraqis.Officials said Mr Rumsfeld's sudden trip was triggered by the photographs.
He earlier told reporters on the flight from Washington: "The garbage that you keep reading, about cover-up and the Pentagon doing something to keep some information from people, is unfair, inaccurate and wrong and if I find any evidence that it's true, I'll stop it."