"Unfortunately, a hearing like this, when we only have five minutes, we're unable to pursue that."
Actually the senators had nearly three hours. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, sounding as always like he'd just emerged from a deep slumber, made a speech about how the terrorists never apologized for 9/11, and how America is different and better than other countries, and so on. When he brought up the Declaration of Independence, it momentarily appeared that he didn't intend to ask any questions at all.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, left, confers with Sen. John Warner during the nearly three-hour session.
(Robert A. Reeder -- The Washington Post)
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Transcript: The Post's Robert G. Kaiser will discuss Rumsfeld's testimony and the fall out from the photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse.
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Transcript: Al Arabiya News Director
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Some senators managed to overcome the throat-clearing impulse and get right down to the Q-and-A. Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island seemed to be getting somewhere, probing for information about the military's interrogation policies, but he ran out of time.
Some of the questions no one seemed eager to ask: What do the new photographs and videos show? Who took them? Will they be made public, and if so, when and under what circumstances? Will they lead to more charges? Do they implicate senior officers? Why did Secretary Rumsfeld only see them Thursday at 7:30 p.m., as he testified? Has the president seen them?
Finally, about 115 minutes into the session, Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina asked Rumsfeld if he'd seen the video showing abuse. Rumsfeld said he hadn't -- he'd seen a disc with pictures, but there is a second disc with videos on it.
During Sen. Elizabeth Dole's speech, more than two hours into the hearing, McCain and Graham quietly glided out the back door, and dozens of journalists popped up from their seats and tromped outside to the hallway, chasing the loquacious senators.
Graham reiterated the ominous remark he'd made in the hearing room:
"It's gonna get worse. . . . It's gonna get worse before it gets better." The new images don't just involve sexual humiliation, he said. "We're talking about rape and murder here."
But was this a fact or just a rumor? Graham said he hadn't seen the video, and his staff later said this was inferred from an Army report.
(Where is there someone who actually knows something?)
Nearly 21/2 hours into the session, Hillary Rodham Clinton got her chance to orate, and then a couple more Democrats lobbed questions, including Mark Dayton, who lectured Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers on the meaning of democracy. Finally, Warner closed the hearing.
"We had a very thorough exchange of views," he said, and everyone got up to rise, only to sit down again to hear some last brief oratory from Frist. Then it was really over, and Rumsfeld & Co. hustled to the House.
