The White House pledged today that the public would be told everything learned during a probe into reports that US Marines may have killed two dozen Iraqi civilians in the Iraqi city of Haditha last November.
The November 19th deaths have led to comparisons from US commentators of the March 16th, 1968, killing of unarmed civilians by US troops in the Vietnamese village of My Lai.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said the Defense Department was investigating the incident and that he had been assured that "when this comes out, all the details will be made available to the public, so we'll have a picture of what happened."
He said Mr Bush first became aware of the 24 civilians killed at Haditha when a Timemagazine reporter asked about it earlier this year, prompting national security adviser Stephen Hadley to brief Mr Bush on it.
US military officials said last week that murder charges could eventually be brought against Marines for the killings at Haditha.
An Iraq war critic, Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. John Murtha, said on Sunday the killings of Iraqi civilians at Haditha had done more damage to US aims in Iraq than the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.
He said there was "no question" that the US military tried to cover up the killings.