The Senate Committee was concerned with the horrific images coming out of Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, involving brutality, torture and sex abuse of the worst kind on Iraqi prisoners. The torturers were apparently enjoying the entire spectacle. These pictures were spread throughout the world media and shook the entire civilised world. In the more than year-long crisis surrounding Iraq, few events had an impact similar in intensity and scope. It has been compared with Guantanamo Bay and atrocities in My Lai in Vietnam. That US soldiers could sink to this depth of depravity, has been difficult to swallow by the most hardened minds.

What the US Senators have tried to get from Defence Secretary Rumsfeld, was when he first saw the reports, the pictures, whether he informed the President, and, if so, when. The Defense Secretary was appropriately flanked by the military top brass and Secretary of the Pentagon. Every now and then they were butting in to extricate the Defence Secretary from sticky situations. The sum total of the answers by Rumsfeld amounted to very little. He was unable to answer satisfactorily when he first saw the pictures and ended by the extraordinary assertion that he had first seen the pictures the day before, that is Thursday the sixth, and he was being interrogated on Friday the seventh! The whole world had seen those pictures for more than a week! Had he discussed those pictures with the President? He remained evasive.

Then some senators took up in earnest the question of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's stepping down as was being suggested from many important quarters. Donald Rumsfeld answered that if he felt that he was not capable of doing justice to the job, he would quit. He added that he would not leave under political pressure. Those of us watching TV late at night could not help feeling that he sounded less than convincing.

The horrendous pictures drama seems like the proverbial last straw. It is universally acknowledged that the Iraq misadventure of President George Bush has been going badly from the start. President Bush along with his faithful ally British Premier Tony Blair launched into a totally unprovoked war built on specious pretexts against President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. The huge war machine of the US, aided by the British, pulverised the little resistance of Iraq and the coalition forces reached Baghdad easily. The Iraqi forces unable to face the Anglo-American attack mounted a very effective guerilla warfare and they continue to inflict intolerable losses on the US forces. Meanwhile the US representative in Iraq, Paul Bremer, is trying to stabilise the situation administratively by keeping to the target of handing over at least partial sovereignty to the Iraqis. In this, the US is aided by the Lakhdar Brahimi, representative of the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. The target date is June 30. President Bush would like to cut his losses and wind down his military operation. The way the Iraqi guerrillas continue to mount their campaign on an ever increasing scale, Bush's plan may be difficult to realise.

Closely linked with the President Bush's military plan in Iraq is tied the question of his re-election as president next November. Indeed for President Bush what overrides every other issue is his re-election. He is painfully aware that this is inextricably tied to finding a solution to the Iraq crisis. Iraq continues to hold centre spot in the election campaign and does not show any sign of going away US House of Congress which had cheerfully voted in favour of attack against Iraq is having second thoughts.

From the grilling within the Senate to which Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was subjected to, it looks pretty certain that his days at the Pentagon are numbered. Will it be the beginning of the unravelling of the Bush White House? Only time will tell.

Arshad-uz-Zaman is a former Ambassador.