Washington: US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has said that the Secretary of Defence retains "the strongest possible support" from President George W Bush despite calls from Democrats for his resignation over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American forces.

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"The President strongly supports Donald Rumsfeld and so do his colleagues, and I strongly support him," Rice told 'The New York Times'.

"He is doing a good job as secretary of Defence in one of the most challenging periods in American history," she said yesterday (May 8, 2004).

Separately, Vice President Dick Cheney told the paper through his spokesman Kevin Kellems that "Don Rumsfeld is the best Secretary of Defense the United States has ever had. People ought to let him to do his job".

Asked about the calls for Rumsfeld's resignation, Rice said, "What the President expects, and what the secretary's doing, is getting to the bottom of what's happened. This is an awful situation," and added that Rumsfeld was making changes "to fix the problem".

Rice also countered the argument of many Democrats that a resignation by Rumsfeld, or his dismissal by the President would send a strong signal overseas about how seriously the US takes the prison abuse scandal.

"The way to send a signal, and to show the world that we take this seriously, is to act, and to have our actions to be commensurate with the very grievous nature of this," Rice said.

"We know the seriousness of this. But the way you deal with this, the way you send a signal, is that you show how strong democracies react when something like this happens".