Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday that he and other top officials kept President Bush "fully informed ... in general terms" about complaints made by the Red Cross and others over ill-treatment of detainees in U.S. custody.

Powell's statement suggests Bush may have known earlier than the White House has acknowledged about complaints raised by the International Committee of the Red Cross and human rights groups regarding abuse of detainees in Iraq.

"We kept the president informed of the concerns that were raised by the ICRC and other international organizations as part of my regular briefings of the president, and advised him that we had to follow these issues, and when we got notes sent to us or reports sent to us ... we had to respond to them, and the president certainly made it clear that that's what he expected us to do," Powell said.

Powell said that he, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld kept Bush "fully informed of the concerns that were being expressed, not in specific details, but in general terms."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said last week that the president was first informed about the abuse of detainees in Iraq by Rumsfeld, who "let the president know that there were allegations of prisoner abuse in Iraq and that the military was taking action to address it."

McClellan did not give a precise date, but Rumsfeld, testifying before Congress, said he told the president in late January or early February about an investigation being conducted by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba into alleged abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, the main U.S. detention facility in Iraq.

Bush has said he did not see the graphic pictures of the abuse until they were broadcast on television.

Powell, in his comments yesterday, appeared to be trying to show that he and his department did not ignore or minimize early reports of the abuse when they began to surface last year.