"This is what worries me. We're fighting a war about America's ideals and democracy's ideas and something like this happens, they try to cover it up," Pennsylvania Representative John Murtha told CNN television.

"It is as bad as Abu Ghraib, if not worse," Murtha stressed.

Two separate US military investigations are under way into the killings in November of some 24 unarmed civilians in Haditha.

"They knew the day after this happened that it was not as they portrayed it. They knew that they went into the rooms, they killed the people in the taxi. There was no firing at all. And this comes from the highest authority in the Marine Corps, so there's no question in my mind," he added.

The lawmaker, a Democrat and a former Marine, said: "It breaks my heart to think Marines did something like this. And when you hear some of the stories now that are coming out, it just makes it worse than ever."

Monday, General Peter Pace, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it was too early to pass judgment on the allegations.

"It would be premature for me to judge the outcome" of the Pentagon investigation into the incident, Pace, a marine, told CBS television.

While acknowledging the investigations, Pace stressed that, if true, the Haditha case was in contrast to "the 99.9 percent who are doing their job exactly the way the American people expect them to."

US officials said Friday that the probes into the November 19 killings were nearing an end and that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had been briefed on the investigations.

Time magazine reported Sunday that lawmakers were told in briefings last week that some members of the Marine unit involved may soon face charges as serious as murder.

Murtha told CNN that some Iraqi families had been compensated.

"The reason I've been speaking out is Iraqis know about this. This has been all through Iraq. There's no question about it. They paid people 1,500 to 2,500 dollars. This doesn't happen unless it comes at the highest authority," Murtha said.

Asked if he meant victims' compensation Murtha said "Yes. And that doesn't happen ... if it's an explosive device."

"For the Marines to do something like this has got to be punished as quickly as possible so the world understands that we don't condone something like this," Murtha stressed.

Senator John Warner, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has said he would treat the matter like the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and hold congressional hearings into the incident.

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