WASHINGTON — At the darkest moment of his Pentagon tenure, when the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal was gathering steam and many in Washington were betting on his swift exit, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld boarded a C-17 cargo plane last year and made an emergency trip to Baghdad.
There, Rumsfeld told a throng of U.S. troops that he had no intention of going down without a fight.
"It's a fact," Rumsfeld said. "I'm a survivor."
Back home, Rumsfeld's trip became fodder for late-night television.
"Yeah, a survivor about to be voted off the island," Jay Leno cracked on "The Tonight Show."
Yet in Washington's own brand of reality television, where Machiavellian intrigue is not a ratings game, Rumsfeld has done far more than survive. Five months into President Bush's second term, Rumsfeld's influence within the administration shows no sign of waning.
Even as the war in Iraq casts a long shadow over the reform agenda that Rumsfeld is pushing at the Pentagon, the Defense chief who remains a magnet for controversy is staying on the offensive.
With public support for the Iraq war declining and the number of critics on Capitol Hill growing, Rumsfeld in the last week emerged again as the Bush Cabinet's most prominent spokesman for the war effort. Three days before appearing on talk shows last Sunday, the 72-year-old Defense secretary withstood eight hours of congressional questioning -- peppered with lawmakers' harsh criticism about the war's progress.
Afterward, aides said Rumsfeld spent little time worrying about critics such as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who characterized Iraq as a "quagmire" and called for the Defense secretary's resignation.
"He doesn't dwell and is always looking ahead to the next thing. This is not a guy who looks back and agonizes," said Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita, who is also one of Rumsfeld's closest advisors.
Beyond Iraq, the White House has given Rumsfeld an unusually long leash that allows him to hold forth on issues far outside his portfolio as Defense secretary.
During the first stop of a two-continent tour last month, Rumsfeld caused a sensation when he delivered a speech in Singapore to Asian defense ministers warning of the threat that China's military poses to the balance of power in the Pacific.
