US: US Defence Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld has said he may cancel his attendance at a security conference in Germany next week because of a lawsuit there accusing him of war crimes for prisoner abuse.
Mr Rumsfeld also disclosed that he twice offered his resignation to President Bush at the height of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal last year.
"It's something that we have to take into consideration," Mr Rumsfeld said when asked at a Pentagon press conference whether the legal action might prevent his appearance. He said he had not made a final decision on whether he would go to the Conference on Security Policy in Munich, an annual meeting of defence officials and politicians from around the world where an address by the US defence secretary is usually a highlight.
"Whether I end up there we'll soon know," he said. "It'll be a week, and we'll find out."
Lawyers from the New York Centre for Constitutional Rights took an action in Germany in November claiming that Mr Rumsfeld and other US officials were ultimately responsible for torture of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. German laws provide for the prosecution of human rights violations across national boundaries and as the US is not a member of the International Criminal Court, the case could not be filed on American territory.
Mr Rumsfeld has denied that his policies led to the physical and sexual abuse of Iraqi detainees, while admitting that he could have done more to head off the trouble.
Meanwhile the Senate voted 60 to 36 on Thursday evening to confirm Mr Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General. Democrats had accused Mr Gonzales of being the architect of interrogation policies that led to abuses.