Washington: The US swung into damage control with its top administration officials condemning the reported atrocities on Iraqi detainees by American troops as "awful" and "despicable", scrambling to persuade the world that the action was an aberration and pledging that the wrongdoers will be punished.

The assurance was given through the media by Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"I want to assure people in the Arab world, Iraq, around the world and the American people that the President is determined to get to the bottom of it, to know who is responsible and to make sure that whoever is responsible is punished for it and held accountable," Rice said on Arab channel Al-Jazeera.

"Those pictures were awful because American men and women in uniform, active and reserve, are serving in Iraq at great sacrifice... it's simply unacceptable that anyone would engage in the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. And we will get to the bottom of it. And those who are responsible will be punished."

Powell said he was "shocked" by the photographs showing the abuse of Iraqi detainees by US troops in Abu Ghraib prison and described such images as "totally despicable".

"And what happened in this particular instance (in Iraq), as best I know from the pictures, was just totally despicable...I'm shocked. And it isn't just the fact that soldiers did it. But no Americans should do this to any other person," he said in an interview to CNN.

"There's a global response to these pictures, as there should be. They are terrible. They are terrible, that's all there is to it. And we will deal with this by telling the people of the world that this is an isolated incident," Powell said.

He also said former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who is in US custody, was being "treated in the highest standards accorded by the United States".

"No stone will be left unturned to make sure that justice is done and to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again."

Defence Secretary Rumsfeld said the matter of alleged abuse of prisoners by US military personnel would be pursued properly under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

"The actions of the soldiers in those photographs are totally unacceptable and un-American," Rumsfeld said during a Pentagon press conference.

Meanwhile, the State Department postponed release of a report on the US human rights record, amid controversy over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers.

The annual report 'Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The US Record' was to have been released yesterday (May 4, 2004). Its release "has been postponed for technical reasons that have held up completion of the report", the State Department said in a statement.

Secretary of State Colin Powell told CNN that the report would be released next week.

US Senators were also angry that they had not been alerted that an investigation into abuse had taken place.