WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld late Wednesday reversed a decision to skip a public hearing on Capitol Hill and said he will testify at a session on the Iraq war.
The move came after hours of criticism and pressure from Senate Democrats who urged him to come before the Senate Armed Services Committee to answer questions about the administration's Iraq policies. Earlier Wednesday, Rumsfeld had said that his crowded calendar did not allow him to be present for the meeting Thursday morning, but he agreed to attend a private, classified briefing in the afternoon with the entire Senate.
Speaking to Pentagon reporters earlier Wednesday, Rumsfeld suggested that complaints about his decision could be politically motivated.
"Let's be honest: Politics enters into these things, and maybe the person raising the question is interested in that," said Rumsfeld, without identifying anyone. The defense secretary said he had testified in the past and was not reluctant to face off against some of the committee's more vocal war critics, including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.
No reason for the change was provided by the Pentagon. The committee said the Pentagon called and said the secretary would now be testifying,
Rumsfeld's initial plan not to testify had drawn protests committee Democrats, who said much had changed in the six months since he last testified and took questions from the committee. The request for his appearance came from the committee chairman, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., and the top Democrat, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan.
"Secretary Rumsfeld's eleventh-hour decision to reverse course and appear at tomorrow's open Armed Services Committee hearing is the right one," said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who had sent him a letter urging him to testify.
Kennedy had also said that Rumsfeld should attend the hearing "to explain and defend his policies in full public view tomorrow."
Rumsfeld's relations with Congress have been testy at times and he has occasionally resisted testifying publicly on controversial subjects, including the debate over whether high-level officials should be held accountable for the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, also are testifying Thursday.
Rumsfeld last appeared before the committee on Feb. 7, when he and Pace were questioned about the war's strain on the military. He has testified at appropriations hearings, however, and has met with lawmakers in a number of classified briefings.......
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