CAIRO, Egypt — The Arab world's main news channels carried live images Friday of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld offering apologies to Iraqi prisoners abused by U.S. troops. But many viewers said the apologies meant little, and that the damage was already done.

"I don't even care if Rumsfeld resigns," Helmi Sharawy, director of the Cairo-based Arab-African Research Center, said as he watched the testimony. "For us, the physical and mental and social damage can't be made up for by an apology or even a resignation."

Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya — the two most popular news stations in the region — and the U.S.-sponsored Al-Hurra channel all aired Rumsfeld's testimony from the beginning, with simultaneous translators dubbing the words into Arabic.

Al-Arabiya at times showed the photographs of U.S. soldiers gloating over humiliated Iraqi prisoners in a split-screen with Rumsfeld's image.

In the Jordanian capital of Amman, Nidal Mansoor, head of the Center for the Protection of Journalists, said it was good — but not enough — that Rumsfeld offered an apology.

"Acknowledging the mistake is better than denying it," he said. But he called on an independent committee to investigate the U.S. abuses.

"Otherwise there is no value to Rumsfeld's apology," he said.

U.S. officials have accused Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya of bias in their coverage of the war in Iraq. But since the prisoner-abuse scandal created widespread resentment in the Middle East, the U.S. government has tried to use them to deliver its message directly to Arabs.

U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice appeared on Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya on Tuesday to pledge that "The president guarantees that those who did that be held accountable." And President Bush himself gave interviews Wednesday to Al-Arabiya and Al-Hurra.

Critics have called for Rumsfeld to resign over the scandal, but Bush said flatly Thursday that "he'll stay in my Cabinet." Many Arabs see Rumsfeld as responsible for the Bush administration's move to war in Iraq.

Some Arab viewers expressed distrust at Rumsfeld's testimony.

"Is this really repairing the harm that took place, or just an attempt to improve their image?" said Yehia el-Gammal, a 31-year old development consultant in Cairo.

While Rumsfeld is a "scapegoat" for the administration, el-Gammal said, U.S. officials have lost credibility in the region and "are really in trouble."

Watching the broadcast in his home in Cairo, Alaa al-Aswani, a novelist and writer, said the abuse of prisoners is a war crime.

The live hearing, in which Rumsfeld said he supported offering compensation to the prisoners involved, is part of a public image campaign, al-Aswani said, and an attempt to avoid prosecution by a war-crime tribunal.

"Rumsfeld was the first to object when pictures of American hostages taken by the former (Saddam) regime were aired on television. He said this was harmful to their dignity and contravened Geneva conventions," al-Aswani said.

"Now, we are talking about a systematic method (of abuse) and not individual cases like he is trying to portray them. Sorry is not enough. Compensation is not enough. These are all attempts by the administration officials to avoid being treated as war criminals."