IRAQ: TORTURE

Guardian: Arab World Scorns Bush's TV 'Apology'
Pressure Mounts In US Over Iraq Torture Scandal

In an unprecedented damage-limitation exercise, President George Bush told Arab TV viewers last night the treatment of prisoners by some members of the US military in Iraq had been "abhorrent" and would be thoroughly investigated.

The people of Iraq "must understand that what took place in that prison does not represent the America that I know," he said in an interview with al-Hurra, an Arabic-language channel funded by the US government.

Though Mr Bush stopped short of a direct apology for the abuse at Abu Ghraib jail, where prisoners were stripped naked and sexually humiliated, he continued: "In a democracy everything is not perfect - mistakes are made."