Newsweek reported this week that Fay failed to interview senior officers to determine how high in the chain of command responsibility lies. A sergeant assigned to military intelligence at Abu Ghraib told the magazine that Fay's interview with him was decidedly unenthusiastic. "I had to volunteer more information than was being asked of me. It was like I was adding to his burden," Sgt. Samuel Provance said. "There are so many soldiers directly involved who haven't been talked to."

The hearings on the Fay report will mark a second round of political bloodletting for the administration. Last month Warner hauled Rumsfeld, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone, Iraq commander Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez and U.S. Central Command chief Gen. John Abizaid to Capitol Hill for public hearings. In a sign of his seriousness, Warner insisted that Rumsfeld testify under oath, declining to grant the secretary the usual courtesy of appearing under more informal circumstances.

Last month's hearings, predictably, infuriated conservatives. House Armed Services Committee chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., criticized his Senate counterpart for pulling Sanchez, Abizaid and other commanders away from pressing duties in Iraq, though the officers were already in Washington for a previously scheduled visit. And Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., said he was "outraged by the outrage" over Abu Ghraib, blaming "humanitarian do-gooders" for kicking up an unnecessary fuss.

One observer doubts that the barbs of conservatives bother the 77-year-old Warner, Virginia's most popular politician. "Pesky little flies. Swat them. I'm sure that's the way he looks at these guys," said Mark Rozell, chairman of the department of politics at Catholic University in Washington.

Speculation that Warner is attempting to shuffle Rumsfeld out the door, however, is probably going too far, his colleagues say. Warner fueled such talk last month when he told reporters that Rumsfeld's resignation is "a subjective decision that only he can make." Yet Warner has expressed no preference to Armed Services Committee members about Rumsfeld's future, and few believe he would try to push out the secretary, in deference to the president's prerogative to choose his own Cabinet. Still, Warner is caught in a bind between loyalty to a Republican president and his duty to the country. He supported Bush on waging the Iraq war. Yet he also believes strongly that Congress has a constitutional obligation to oversee the executive branch, colleagues say. Then there's the issue of his conscience. "I'm sure he was offended to the bone by the pictures of the recent incidents," said retired Marine Corps Col. John E. Greenwood, a former aide to Warner.

The son of a World War I field surgeon, Warner was born in Washington and enlisted in the Navy in January 1945, at age 17. He served through the end of World War II, then attended Virginia's Washington and Lee University, from which his father had graduated in 1903. After completing a degree in engineering, he entered University of Virginia Law School, temporarily interrupting his studies to join the Marine Corps when the Korean War broke out in 1950. He then spent 16 years as a judge's clerk, an assistant U.S. attorney and a lawyer in private practice before President Nixon appointed him undersecretary of the Navy in 1969. Three years later, Nixon promoted Warner to secretary of the Navy.

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