By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 7, 2004; Page A01

A week after the release of photographs showing American soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners, President Bush apologized for the abuse for the first time yesterday and called the revelations "a stain on our country's honor and our country's reputation."

Bush spoke in the Rose Garden with King Abdullah of Jordan at his side and said he had assured the king in an Oval Office meeting that "Americans, like me, didn't appreciate what we saw, that it made us sick to our stomachs."

"I told him I was sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi prisoners, and the humiliation suffered by their families," Bush said. "I told him I was equally sorry that people who have been seeing those pictures didn't understand the true nature and heart of America."

A wide variety of officials in the administration had advised Bush to apologize on Wednesday when he gave interviews to two Arab television channels and were puzzled when he did not, senior U.S. officials said. An apology had been recommended in the talking points Bush received from the State Department and elsewhere, the officials said. Senior administration aides then made a push overnight for him to say he was sorry during his news conference with Abdullah, the officials said.

Bush's decision to personally ratify an apology that his subordinates had previously offered, and to do so next to an Arab leader and in language designed to resonate in Muslim culture, reflected growing concern among his advisers that the widening scandal could imperil the outcome of the Iraq occupation and his reelection campaign.

Bush said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is "an important part of my Cabinet, and he'll stay in my Cabinet," although the president said he told Rumsfeld on Wednesday that the White House should not have learned about the extent of the problem, and the contents of a Pentagon investigation, from news reports. "I should have known about the pictures and the report," Bush said.

Fallout from the photos dominated both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, with the fracas emboldening Democrats to unleash their harshest, most personal criticism yet of Bush's handling of the war.

Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), long known for supporting the military and consulting with Rumsfeld and other Pentagon leaders, told reporters that the United States must send many thousands more troops to stabilize Iraq "or get out."

Bush continued his damage-control efforts yesterday by giving an interview to the Egyptian al-Ahram newspaper for more than 30 minutes, and White House officials said they planned to release a videotape of the exchange to Egyptian television and the European Broadcast Union.

Journalists in the interview said Bush teared up as he recounted a meeting he held in November with female Iraqi leaders. "The door opened to the Oval Office and the first woman that walked in looked at me and she burst out in tears, and said, 'You are my liberator,' " Bush said. "It touched my heart."

Bush kept to his public schedule, including appearing with conservative leaders James Dobson and Oliver L. North at an East Room event marking the National Day of Prayer. "Americans do not presume to equate God's purposes with any purpose of our own," Bush said. He said prayer "teaches us to trust, to accept that God's plan unfolds in his time, not our own."

White House press secretary Scott McClellan left open the possibility that Bush had learned about the investigation before a news release Jan. 16 but said officials still could not pin down when Rumsfeld mentioned the investigation. McClellan said Bush "asked the questions and wanted to make sure that there was a full investigation going on to address these matters, and he was told that there were."

A White House official said Rumsfeld brought up the investigation in a conversation with Bush and Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. "before or after a more formal meeting." The official said that White House aides are not looking through notes, e-mails and call logs to try to pinpoint the date because it is believed that no record exists.

Some Pentagon officials contend Bush was informed in January. Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday on CBS's "Early Show" that beginning in mid-January, everyone "up the chain of command . . . was kept apprised orally of the ongoing investigation."

Asked if Bush "was well aware of the situation," Pace replied: "Yes."

The Rose Garden appearance with Abdullah was designed for maximum impact in the Arab world, where the revelations have fueled anti-Americanism and fed doubts about White House claims that its Middle East policy is aimed at spreading democracy.

Bush promised to "take a good look at the whole system" to "make sure this doesn't happen again.

"I was sickened by what I saw, and sickened that somebody gets the wrong impression of people who are serving this country and this world with such dignity," he said.

An aide said Bush's statement about "the whole system" referred to the military prison system in Iraq, but pointed out that Pentagon officials have said they are looking at operations beyond Iraq, including the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the brig at the Charleston naval base in South Carolina.

On Capitol Hill, a blistering debate over the Iraq war erupted in the House. Murtha said he was exasperated by the administration's refusal to send at least 200,000 troops to stabilize Iraq, although he said more are needed now. He said U.S. troops "are suffering because of the lack of planning by those people over there at the Pentagon" and "bad intelligence, inept planning, careless mistakes made by the architect of this war.

"We cannot prevail in this war with the policy that is going today," said Murtha, a 32-year House member. "We either have to mobilize or we have to get out."

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) hastily called a news conference to answer Murtha's comments and said, "In a calculated and craven political stunt, the national Democrat Party declared its surrender in the war on terror.

"For two years, they have strutted down to the floor of the House and, out of sheer, brazen partisanship, undermined our troops, scoffed at our coalition, and shown the terrorists of this world that there are some Americans who will cower under their threats," DeLay said. "They want to win the White House more than they want to win the war."

House members later voted 365 to 50 for a resolution deploring U.S. mistreatment of Iraqi detainees in a prison near Baghdad. "The alleged crimes of a handful of individuals should not detract from the commendable sacrifice of over 300,000 members of the United States Armed Forces who have served, or who are serving" in Iraq, it said.

Numerous Democrats voted against the resolution because it did not call for bipartisan congressional investigations into the alleged abuses, especially those reportedly committed by civilian contractors.

Also yesterday, the government's chief classifier decided to open an investigation into the appropriateness of classifying the Army's probe of prison abuses. J. William Leonard, director of the Information Security Oversight Office, agreed to a request in a letter from Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists.

In the letter, Aftergood cited the executive order on classification, No. 12958, as prohibiting the classification of documents solely to "conceal violations of law." Government documents are supposed to be classified if revealing their contents would harm national security. Senior Pentagon officials have been unable to explain why the report, known as an Article 15-6, was classified. In response to a reporter's question on May 4, Pace said, "I do not know specifically why it was labeled secret."

At the same news conference, Rumsfeld also was at a loss to explain why the report would be considered secret. "You'd have to ask the classifier," he said.

Staff writers Charles Babington, Dan Balz, Dana Priest and Robin Wright contributed to this report.