Enquirer news services

WASHINGTON - President Bush examined new photos and video clips of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners Monday, reacting with "deep disgust and disbelief" during a Pentagon visit.

The president also underscored his support for embattled Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"You are doing a superb job," Bush told Rumsfeld in front of reporters, his strongest defense of him yet. "You are a strong secretary of defense, and our nation owes you a debt of gratitude."

But the aftershocks from the scandal at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad appeared to be far from over.

Today, the Senate Armed Services Committee is scheduled in a public session to hear from Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, the author of an Army report that detailed the Abu Ghraib prison abuse.

And the Senate voted 92-0 Monday evening for a resolution that calls for a full Senate investigation into the scandal to be conducted by relevant committees.

Bush, seeking to douse speculation about Rumsfeld's future, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the secretary - along with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and other civilian and military officials - to offer a testimonial before television cameras.

Then Bush went behind closed doors to view about two dozen video clips and photos showing U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush reacted with "deep disgust and disbelief that anyone who wears our uniform would engage in such shameful and appalling acts." McClellan declined to describe the images that Bush saw, but the evidence collected by military investigators includes shots of naked Iraqi women.

The highly unusual gathering of Bush officials at the Pentagon illustrated the gravity of the prison-abuse controversy. It was a meeting first proposed several weeks ago, but one that gained urgency over the weekend, when several additional officials, including Cheney, were told to report.

Rumsfeld's executive dining room was transformed into a TV studio for the president to address a bank of cameras, a handful of journalists and a gaggle of top aides.

Rumsfeld stood on one side of Bush, Cheney on the other. Cheney left the Pentagon ahead of Bush to campaign in New Hampshire and Maine.

Also on hand: National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and deputy, Stephen Hadley; White House chief of staff Andy Card; Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs; John Negroponte, the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq; and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

At the Senate hearing today, Taguba will be the leadoff witness. Also scheduled to testify is Undersecretary of Defense Stephen Cambone, who oversees military intelligence, and other Pentagon military brass.

Taguba, who investigated the treatment of Iraqi captives, said in his report that other abuses included a male guard having sex with a female detainee and male captives being sodomized with some type of pole or stick.

The role of higher-ranking military or intelligence officers is central to the investigation of what went wrong. One senior military official said that military-intelligence officers felt pressure from their superiors - both military and civilian - to "turn up the heat" on Iraqi prisoners after early interrogations hadn't yielded much information.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because he was discussing classified information, the official said U.S. military intelligence was seeking to learn more about the anti-American insurgency, links to foreign terrorists and missing weapons of mass destruction, although the detainees they were "squeezing" weren't knowledgeable about such subjects.

"Most of the people that were picked up were the wrong ones," the U.S. intelligence official said. "They were either too low-level to know much, they didn't know about anything other than the stuff they were doing themselves, or they weren't involved in any bad stuff."

The Armed Services Committee intends to focus on military intelligence today.

"I would like to know the role of the intelligence community. Who authorized, suggested, proposed or prompted the activities by the military police guards? I don't believe they were doing this on their own," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the senior Democrat on the committee. "I think it is critically important that the guards are not the only ones who are held accountable here. That the accountability go all the way up the chain, as far as the facts point."

The latest batch of undisclosed graphic photos presents the Bush administration with a dilemma. Publicly releasing the photos would almost certainly add to the anti-American sentiments in Iraq and throughout the Arab world. Withholding them could fuel charges of a cover-up and wouldn't necessarily prevent their unauthorized release under even more damaging circumstances.

Hoping to head off pressure from Congress for a full release, Pentagon officials were considering a plan to share the evidence privately with lawmakers. Any viewing 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, according to several officials.

Several lawmakers said they expected the photos and videos would eventually become public.

"Sooner or later, they're going to have to be released," Senate intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said. He predicted that they would "come out piecemeal" if the administration didn't move to release them on its own.

Bush repeated his promise of a full investigation into "cruel and disgraceful" mistreatment of Iraqi captives, followed by punishment for any abusers.

In an interview with the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, Bush sought to bolster troops worried that the scandal has tarnished their reputation:

"The actions of a few will not be allowed to stain the honor of the mighty United States military."