WASHINGTON, May 25 (New York Times) — An Army summary of deaths and mistreatment involving prisoners in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan shows a widespread pattern of abuse involving more military units than previously known.

The cases from Iraq date back to April 15, 2003, a few days after Saddam Hussein’s statue was toppled in a Baghdad square, and they extend up to last month, when a prisoner detained by Navy commandos died in a suspected case of homicide blamed on “blunt force trauma to the torso and positional asphyxia.”

Among previously unknown incidents are the abuse of detainees by Army interrogators from a National Guard unit attached to the Third Infantry Division, who are described in a document obtained by The New York Times as having “forced into asphyxiation numerous detainees in an attempt to obtain information” during a 10-week period last spring.

The document, dated May 5, is a synopsis prepared by the Criminal Investigation Command at the request of Army officials grappling with intense scrutiny prompted by the circulation the preceding week of photographs of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. It lists the status of investigations into three dozen cases, including the continuing investigation into the notorious abuses at Abu Ghraib.

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White House spokesman Scott McClellan was quick to condemn the Army’s characterization of the abuses as “widespread” or representing a “pattern.”

“As far as our investigation has determined, each of the 36 cases is representative of isolated incidents perpetrated by a few individuals,” McClellan said. “It’s pretty clear that things happened, but we’re confident that any authorization for any alleged abuses happened at levels no higher than direct evidence documents. These guys were acting on their own, and they don’t reflect the values of anybody who hasn’t been caught.”

McClellan described any similarities between the 36 isolated cases as “a really amazing coincidence” or the actions of “a few sick individuals who traveled a lot.”

McClellan also pointed out that the incidents themselves were isolated in terms of what parts of the prisoners were abused. “Take the beatings,” he said. “Deplorable, yes, but often they were isolated, for example, to just the head and some parts of the torso. Sometimes as much as 76% of a prisoner’s body was treated completely humanely and in accordance with the Geneva Convention. But you guys never report that.“