Arabs Say Bush Interviews Are Too Little Too Late

They suspect the motives were to protect Israel, seize control of Iraq's oil, build an American empire in the Middle East or simply to wage war on Muslims.

"American credibility has been hurt and people in the region tend not to believe what American officials are saying," said Gamal Sultan, a researcher at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, a Cairo think-tank.

Waleed Tabtabai, an Islamist member of the Kuwait parliament, said that when he first saw the pictures of abused Iraqi prisoners: "I felt that the Americans....are not really there to spread democracy and freedom but to impose the imperialist project of the American Empire."

"If Bush is really sincere that the torturing of the Iraqis does not represent American values then he should couple his talk with deeds. He should uncover what is going on inside Guantanamo (the U.S. detention center in Cuba)," he added.

The United States should allow family visits to the hundreds of Muslim detainees at Guantanamo, some of whom have spent over two years in custody without trial, and allow an independent investigation of detention conditions, he said.

The Arab commentators said that the abuses stemmed from what most Arabs consider the illegal occupation of Iraq by the United States and its allies and that this must end.

"No matter how hard Bush pledges to punish those responsible, there will be no guarantee these barbaric acts will stop as long as the sovereignty of the people of Iraq is violated by foreign occupation," said the Qatar paper al-Watan.

Abdel-Moneim Said, the director of the Al-Ahram Center, said that serious punishment of the offending U.S. troops could repair some of the damage but Bush did not seem to understand that people do not like to live under occupation.

"In all history we know there was outrageous torture and misuse of power that took place from all occupying forces in the world... President Bush should know there is nothing called nice occupation. Occupation is always ugly," he said.