Washington ? A week after the release of photos showing American soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners, President Bush apologized Thursday for the first time and called the revelations “a stain on our country’s honor and our country’s reputation.”

Bush spoke in the Rose Garden with King Abdullah II of Jordan at his side, and said he had assured the king during a White House meeting “Americans, like me, didn’t appreciate what we saw.”

“I told him I was sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi prisoners, and the humiliation suffered by their families,” Bush said. “I told him I was equally sorry that people who have been seeing those pictures didn’t understand the true nature and heart of America.”

Bush also said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was “an important part of my Cabinet, and he’ll stay in my Cabinet,” although the president acknowledged telling Rumsfeld on Wednesday that the White House should not have learned about the extent of the problem, and the contents of a Pentagon investigation, from news reports. “I should have known about the pictures and the report,” Bush said.

White House officials are bracing for the release of even more photos and planning long-term damage-control strategies. “Everyone is seeing the extent of what happened,” a White House official said.

The Rose Garden appearance with Abdullah was designed for maximum impact in the Arab world, where the revelations have fueled anti-Americanism and fed doubts about White House claims that its Middle East policy is aimed at spreading democracy.