More Bad News May Be on the Way for Bush

Saturday, May 8, 2004

(11:12 PM ET)

By Terence Hunt

Associated Press Writer

EDITOR'S NOTE: Terence Hunt has covered every president since Ronald Reagan

``The public is very critical of Bush's management of Iraq. They don't think he has a clear plan for bringing it to a successful conclusion, but a thin majority of the public has been hanging in with that it was the right decision to go to war. This could be the event which makes people say 'Oh, we did make a mistake.'''

President Bush holds a frozen yogurt as he walks back to his campaign bus during an unscheduled stop at a Culver Frozen Custard and Butter Burgers in Viroqua, Wis., Friday, May 7, 2004. The President is on a one-day bus campaign swing through Iowa and Wisconsin.

Image Credit: Gerald Herbert -- AP

WASHINGTON -- AP
In one of the darkest weeks of his administration, President Bush saw America's reputation sullied, the U.S. effort in Iraq damaged and his own campaign for re-election clouded. And more bad news may be on the way.

While the world already has been horrified by pictures of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners, the Pentagon warns there are many more photos and videos that have not been disclosed.

They show ``acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman,'' embattled Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress.

From the White House to Capitol Hill, policy-makers are worried that the United States faces lasting damage abroad -- particularly in the Middle East -- from the pictures of naked Arab men being tortured and humiliated by American soldiers, the same forces sent to Iraq to liberate the country from Saddam Hussein's torture and repression.

Analysts describe the pictures as great recruiting tools for al-Qaida and other extremist groups and said they undermine America's claims to a moral high ground. Rumsfeld said the impact was ``radioactive.''

Bush, in his weekly radio address Saturday, said, ``They are a stain on our country's honor and reputation.'' He said the abuses were the work of a few and do not reflect the overall character of the 200,000 members of the U.S. military who have served in Iraq in the past year.

Six months from the November elections, Iraq weighs heavily on the president.

April was the deadliest month yet for American soldiers in Iraq and May is off to a bloody start.

(More: Netscape Network News w/CNN)

2003 © The Associated Press.

Dan