One of Ours

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, making a surprise visit to Iraq, went to the Abu Ghraib prison Thursday and told U.S. troops "we'll get through" the international uproar over abuse of inmates there.

Arriving here with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers by helicopter in a dust storm, the embattled Rumsfeld called the abuse scandal a "body blow for all of us" but said he was determined that those in the wrong be punished.

"The people who engaged in abuses will be brought to justice," the defense secretary said. "The world will see how a free and democratic society functions."

[...]

"I've stopped reading newspapers," Rumsfeld quipped to the troops here. "You've got to keep your sanity somehow. I'm a survivor."

[...]

...Rumsfeld told reporters en route to Iraq that lawyers are advising the Pentagon not to publicly release any more pictures of Iraqi prisoners being abused by U.S. soldiers. He also dismissed as "garbage" any suggestion the Pentagon tried to cover up the prison abuse.

[...]

...he said, "As far as I'm concerned, I'd be happy to release them all to the public and to get it behind us. But at the present time I don't know anyone in the legal shop in any element of the government that is recommending that."

[...]

He said the incidents "sullied the reputation of our country. I was stunned. It was a body blow. And with six or seven investigations under way and a country that has values and a military justice system that has values, we know that those involved, whoever they are, will be brought to justice."

" .. It's important for each of you to know that that is not the values of America and it's not your values and I know that, and you know that and your families know that," he said...