WASHINGTON – A military self-examination of allegations that medical personnel mistreated prisoners found a few instances of abuse but no widespread problems, the Army’s surgeon general said yesterday.

Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley’s findings were based on surveys and interviews with roughly 1,000 medical personnel who were associated with the care of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He said his survey did not include the detainees themselves, or personnel affiliated with the Red Cross or other organizations.

Of the medical personnel surveyed, 32 said they witnessed abuse of prisoners. All but six said they reported the abuse to criminal investigators or their chain of command; the others said the problem was dealt with “on the spot.”

Less than a dozen of the incidents involved possible mistreatment allegedly committed by other medical personnel, General Kiley told reporters at the Pentagon after briefing some members of Congress on his findings.

These included medics dropping a stretcher-bound prisoner from too great a height, delaying the administration of pain medication, and slapping a violent prisoner, he said.

“The majority of medical personnel did not observe abuse,” General Kiley said. “We found no evidence of systemic problems in detainee medical care.”

He said he could not verify allegations published in the medical journal the Lancet that doctors or medics falsified death certificates to cover up homicides, hid evidence of beatings, and revived a prisoner so he could be tortured further.

General Kiley said he found problems in medical record-keeping and some vague policies, but said those were being corrected and that detainee medical care has generally been good.

More than 100 prisoners have died while in American custody, according to the military.

General Kiley’s “assessment” – the Pentagon denied it was an investigation – is the latest into some aspect of prisoner-abuse allegations that have surfaced since the abuses at Abu Ghraib became public knowledge last year.

Most of the alleged abuses of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been blamed on military police, interrogators, or troops fresh from combat, but a few have involved doctors and medics.

At Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, two Army medics said they knew about abuses of prisoners there but failed to report them, according to the military’s investigation there. General Kiley was not asked how they fit into his numbers.

Watchdogs have raised concerns about doctors’ violating medical ethics by pointing out prisoners’ weaknesses to interrogators.

General Kiley said the work of these doctors is appropriate as long as they do not serve as caregivers to the detainees and their advice is safe, legal, and ethical. He would not rule out the possibility that their work may include advice to interrogators on methods to increase the stress on a subject.