WASHINGTON – The Pentagon (search), responding to charges that its medical personnel mistreated military detainees, conducted its own examination and found no widespread abuses, a spokesman said Thursday.
"There was no evidence of systemic problems in detainee medical care," said spokesman Bryan Whitman.
The Army's surgeon general who conducted the assessment, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley (search), would still recommend some changes, Whitman said, declining to be more specific.
Kiley, who was assigned to look into charges of abuse involving doctors and medics, was to present his findings to Congress and the public later Thursday.
Most of the alleged abuses of prisoners in Iraq (search), Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been blamed on military police or interrogators, but a few have involved doctors and medics.
At Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, two Army medics knew about abuses of prisoners there but failed to report them, according to the military's investigation there.
The Army has faced accusations in a medical journal that doctors or medics falsified death certificates to cover up homicides, hid evidence of beatings and revived a prisoner so he could be further tortured.
Watchdogs have raised concerns about doctors' violating medical ethics by pointing out prisoners' weaknesses to interrogators.
Last month, the Pentagon issued new guidelines for medical personnel aimed at preventing any future abuse.
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