Bush promises justice after Iraq abuse

President George W. Bush sought to repair America's image among Iraqis yesterday by making a personal pledge on Arab television that soldiers who murdered and abused Iraqi prisoners would be punished.

"In a democracy everything is not perfect. Mistakes are made. But in a democracy as well those mistakes will be investigated and people will be brought to justice," he told the US-funded Alhurra channel. He also spoke to Al-Arabiya.

A week after pictures were published of grinning soldiers abusing naked Iraqis at a prison once used by Saddam Hussein's torturers, the US army revealed that Americans also murdered at least two Iraqis, one of them at the notorious Abu Ghraib.

A top Bush ally, the Republican Senate majority leader, said the scandal could undermine Mr Bush's entire project in Iraq.

A further 10 deaths were being investigated, the army said. Last week's pictures sparked worldwide outrage and a hasty damage-limitation exercise in Washington, where official inquiries into the allegations began in January.

At Abu Ghraib prison, outside Baghdad, where nearly 4,000 Iraqis are held, hundreds marched outside the heavily guarded walls demanding the release of relatives. Some vowed vengeance.

At a coffee shop in Baghdad, where men gathered to watch Mr Bush on television, one customer, Abdul-Kader Abdul-Rahim, said he did not doubt that the US military would investigate the abuse. But he doubted that this would change conditions in Iraq.

"I do believe the president when he talks about investigation because they live in a democracy and in this democracy even (Mr) Bush can be investigated," he said.

"But what is happening in Iraq is different from their democratic regimes. We're all treated like prisoners here."

A US general's probe into abuse at Abu Ghraib recounted detainees being beaten, kept naked for days and forced to do sexual acts while being filmed.

Army officials said the military had investigated the deaths of 25 prisoners held by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and determined that an Army soldier and a CIA contractor each murdered a prisoner in Iraq, where most of the deaths occurred.

US officials in Iraq have rejected comparisons with the old regime, which killed and tortured thousands in Abu Ghraib.

"We didn't put 300,000 in mass graves," one said in Baghdad. The general brought in from Guantanamo Bay to run the jails in the wake of the report apologised and vowed there would be no repeat of abuse, saying beatings, hooding and other practices were banned. Thousands more of about 10,000 Iraqis still held would be freed, Major General Geoffrey Miller said. But US efforts to isolate the case captured on camera to a few bad apples - six soldiers face court-martial and seven have been disciplined - ring hollow to many Iraqis, for whom tales of beatings and humiliation behind the razor wire have been commonplace since the US invasion toppled Saddam a year ago.

Mr Bush, seeking re-election in November, says the invasion will lead to a democratic Iraq that will serve as a beacon of stability in the Middle East. The next step is the return of formal sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government on June 30.

But US forces will remain long after that, in numbers greater than Washington once forecast. A level of about 138,000 US troops will be maintained into the winter, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, adding: "You're going to have a period of increased attacks."