CORK: Whenever a country goes to war, incidents will happen about which one cannot be proud, the US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Mr Tommy Thompson, has acknowledged.
"You cannot control every human impulse, you cannot control every human act," he told a press conference in Cork yesterday where he was attending an informal meeting of EU health ministers.
A small group of anti-war and other protest groups assembled outside the Rochestown Park Hotel where the meeting was taking place.
Mr Thompson said that while he did not condone the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, he believed the US was right to go to war with Iraq.
"We are very sad about the human rights violations. Certainly it is not condoned in any way by the president or the United States government. There are several investigations going on as everybody knows and the individuals that did these deeds are going to be punished with the full spirit of the law. And we are making every effort to change the procedures to make sure that this does never happen again," he said.
"It detracts from what we are trying to do. It detracts from the tremendous multitude of wonderful soldiers and sailors and other military people that are doing their duty, day in and day out. We are very upset about it. We are doing everything we possibly can to make it right," he added. He went on to support the work of the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. He did not believe he should resign.
Asked how he felt about the protest groups outside and the fact that protests were also threatened for Mr Bush's visit to the Republic, he said they reflected the way modern democracies work. "I don't see anything wrong with that," he said.
The protesters, who were kept some distance from the hotel by a large security presence, included members of the Cork Anti-War Alliance. There were also a number of individuals protesting over abortion, water fluoridation and waste incineration.