However, Mr Bush rejected calls for Mr Rumsfeld’s head, saying “he’ll stay in my cabinet”, even as fresh abuse photos fueled burgeoning outrage and supplied Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry with new ammunition in the percolating campaign for the November elections.
In Iraq, the violence continued as US forces launched co-ordinated attacks against the followers of rebel cleric Moqtada Sadr, killing dozens and using tanks to secure the governor’s offices in the Shiite holy city of Najaf after US Administrator Paul Bremer named a new provincial governor for the city in an apparent attempt to marginalise Sadr.
Earlier, a suicide car bomb killed six Iraqi civilians and a US soldier outside the coalition’s Baghdad headquarters.
Two US soldiers were killed and two others wounded in a roadside bomb attack in the Iraqi capital.
