Bart Stupak: “I rise today for two reasons: to call for President Bush to fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for failing to act…”

“I rise today for two reasons: to call for President Bush to fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for failing to act upon reports of the disgusting photographs and inhumane treatment of Iraqi prisoners, and I also call upon the U.S. House of Representatives to hold hearings into the role private contractors may have played in these incidents. Mr. Speaker, President Bush has repeatedly allowed the United States' reputation with the international community to be tarnished and has not held his appointees accountable for this damage. Whether it was going to war based upon inaccurate intelligence information, or White House officials exposing the identity of one of our own CIA operatives, or the most recent revelation about the inhumane treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, President Bush refuses to hold his people accountable. According to recent media reports, administration officials, including Secretary Rumsfeld, have known about these abuses for months, yet they failed to act on repeated recommendations to improve conditions for thousands of Iraqi detainees.”