U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday clashed with Democratic lawmakers who accused the Bush administration of incompetence in Iraq and called for a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal. Rumsfeld, accompanied by two top military officers, defended the progress made in Iraq but acknowledged that "There's no roadmap how to do this." The U.S. defense chief pointed to the success of Iraq's national elections in December and other indicators of progress but admitted that political factors have delayed the formation of a new Iraqi government. A permanent Iraqi government is "going to be an Iraqi picture. It's not going to be an American picture," Rumsfeld said. "But it's going to get done." He added that allowing Iraq to be ruled by Islamic extremists or members of the ousted Saddam Hussein regime was "fundamentally unacceptable." Democratic lawmakers criticized Rumsfeld's handling of the conflict, raising longstanding controversies about the lack of planning and troops to quickly pacify the country after the initial U.S. invasion. "This issue isn't simply about policy," said Representative David Obey of Wisconsin, the ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee. "I think it's also about competence and whether or not this administration is competent enough to handle the chore which we have before us in Iraq." Rumsfeld strongly insisted that the Pentagon's civilian leadership had provided as many troops for Iraq as were requested by military commanders. "The mythology that has grown up around this issue of numbers of troops and someone deciding it should be more or less in the White House or in the civilian side of the Pentagon is just … not true," he said. Asked about new photographs that emerged this week showing abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, Rumsfeld replied, "I'm told that these photographs that are coming out now are nothing more than the same things that came out before. … That behavior has been punished." Military personnel have been court-martialed and sent to prison or reduced in rank for "unacceptable" conduct at Abu Ghraib, he said.
