Whole lotta 'splainin to do

The administration spokesman says he was sorry but it looks to me as though he stopped short of a full-fledged apology to Iraqis. Does this count?

President George W. Bush apologized Thursday for humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of American guards, telling King Abdullah of Jordan that the scenes of mistreatment had made Americans "sick to our stomachs."

A day after he stopped short of apologizing on Arab TV, Bush told Jordan's King Abdullah that he was "sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi prisoners and the humiliation suffered by their families."

His lack of an apology Wednesday was striking, and his spokesman said later that the president was indeed sorry. Images of smiling American guards standing alongside naked Iraqi prisoners in sexually suggestive positions sparked outrage in Iraq and across the Arab world.

In a joint Rose Garden news conference, Bush said he told Abdullah he was "equally sorry that people seeing those pictures didn't understand the true nature and heart of America."

Well, okay. It does count. But to be sure, Rumsfeld seems to have a lot of explaining to do this next week.