US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended on Tuesday the Pentagon's handling of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, saying that the military,not the media, discovered and reported the abuses.

When the abuse of prisoners in Iraq was uncovered, the military"acted responsibly and told the world that there were charges/allegations of abuses," he said at a town hall meeting of militaryand civilian workers at the Pentagon.

"The military, not the media, discovered these abuses. The military reported the abuses, not the media," he said.

Rumsfeld denied there was a "culture of deception, of intimidation or of cover-up" in the Pentagon. "Those who make allegations of a culture of deception, of intimidation or of cover-up need to be extremely careful about such accusations," he said.

Rumsfeld, who was accused of being too slow to inform the president and the US Congress of the scandal of abusing Iraqi detainees by US soldiers, has been under pressure from some Democrats to resign.

But he still enjoyed the strong backing from President George W.Bush, who went to the Pentagon on Monday saying Rumsfeld was "doing a superb job."

"You are a strong secretary of Defense, and our nation owes youa debt of gratitude," Bush said in a statement delivered after a closed briefing on Iraq by Rumsfeld and other senior military leaders.

Rumsfeld reiterated that those accountable in the abuse scandalwould be punished. "There are wrongdoers, and they need to be addressed, and justice needs to be served," he said.

He warned that the abuse might be exploited by US critics. "Those acts should not be allowed to define us in the eyes of the world or our own eyes," he said.

Source: Xinhua