Washington - US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld late Wednesday reversed a decision to skip a public hearing on Capitol Hill and said he will testify at a session on the Iraq war.

US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld listens to questions during a press briefing at the Pentagon, Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2006. [AP Photo]

The move came after hours of criticism and pressure from US Senate Democrats who urged him to come before the Senate Armed Services Committee to answer questions about the administration's Iraq policies. Earlier Wednesday, Rumsfeld had said that his crowded calendar did not allow him to be present for the meeting Thursday morning, but he agreed to attend a private, classified briefing in the afternoon with the entire Senate.

Speaking to Pentagon reporters earlier Wednesday, Rumsfeld suggested that complaints about his decision could be politically motivated.

"Let's be honest: Politics enters into these things, and maybe the person raising the question is interested in that," said Rumsfeld, without identifying anyone. The defense secretary said he had testified in the past and was not reluctant to face off against some of the committee's more vocal war critics, including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

No reason for the change was provided by the Pentagon. The committee said the Pentagon called and said the secretary would now be testifying,

Rumsfeld's initial plan not to testify had drawn protests committee Democrats, who said much had changed in the six months since he last testified and took questions from the committee. The request for his appearance came from the committee chairman, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., and the top Democrat, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan.

"Secretary Rumsfeld's eleventh-hour decision to reverse course and appear at tomorrow's open Armed Services Committee hearing is the right one," said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who had sent him a letter urging him to testify.

Kennedy had also said that Rumsfeld should attend the hearing "to explain and defend his policies in full public view tomorrow."

Rumsfeld's relations with Congress have been testy at times and he has occasionally resisted testifying publicly on controversial subjects, including the debate over whether high-level officials should be held accountable for the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. John Abizaid, chief of US Central Command, also are testifying Thursday.

Rumsfeld last appeared before the committee on Feb. 7, when he and Pace were questioned about the war's strain on the military. He has testified at appropriations hearings, however, and has met with lawmakers in a number of classified briefings.

In the last six months, the number of US troops in Iraq has dipped but now is back up to about 133,000, as part of an effort to quell the violence in Baghdad. The total could exceed 135,000 in the weeks and months ahead.

In other comments, Rumsfeld and Pace, citing intelligence concerns, sidestepped a question about whether they have seen evidence that Iran is supporting Hezbollah in its fight against Israel.

Rumsfeld said it is evident that Hezbollah is using Iranian weapons, adding, "Hezbollah's a terrorist organization, and Iran's their principal financial and military supplier and supporter. The linkage is tight."

Rumsfeld also offered an explanation for why as many as two-thirds of the Army's brigades and many National Guard units are rated not ready for combat. He said the Pentagon is wrestling with standards that would best describe the condition of the units. And he noted that highly experienced units coming home from Iraq leave a lot of equipment behind and as a result are considered not combat ready.

"The Army today is vastly better than it was two, four, six or eight years ago," he said. "It has much more equipment, much better equipment, and it's better trained and more experienced."

He and Pace also said that funding to address the National Guard's needs, which equal about $21 billion through 2011, has been included in budget plans over the next five years.