WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush said that the graphic photographs of American military guards abusing Iraqi detainees inside Abu Ghraib prison had "disgraced" the United States.
However, in excerpts of an interview, conducted earlier this week, with CBS News broadcast Sunday, Bush stressed that the US authorities had investigated the abuse and brought those responsible to account.
"There's no question ... we were disgraced," Bush said in response to a question about America's image overseas, following the Abu Ghraib scandal.
"I know it caused a lot of people who want to like us to question whether they should," Bush said, adding "equally importantly, it gave the enemy an incredible propaganda tool.
"That's why it was important for us to investigate, to expose, to hold people to account, so people see there was a consequence for the behaviour," Bush underlined.
Photographs showing US guards humiliating and abusing Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison enveloped the US military in a public relations firestorm after the pictures were released to the media in 2004.
The Pentagon launched numerous investigations into the abuse, punishing several, mostly low-ranking, guards who had worked at the jail, which was a notorious torture center under former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
The US president also told CBS News the "hardest part" of his job was visiting wounded American soldiers in hospital and comforting families who sons and daughters have died in Iraq.
"The hardest part is knowing that I made a decision that put kids in harm's way that didn't come back. The hardest part is knowing that it was my decision that caused some kid to lose his life," Bush said.
"And the hardest part of the job is to comfort a mom or a dad or a wife."
Asked why he thought the administration's policies in Iraq had seen a decline in public support, Bush replied that some Americans were struggling to see progress being made.
"People saw death on the TV screens without a sense that we're making progress. That's why I started giving these speeches (on Iraq and the war on terror), my job is not only commander in chief, but educator in chief," Bush said.
"And I needed to say to the people 'you bet it's tough,' and the enemy is using their one weapon effectively, which is the destruction of innocent life," he added.
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