Baghdad, Iraq ? Iraq’s top general on Sunday rejected President Bush’s criticism that some Iraqi government troops were unwilling to fight insurgents and have deserted the battlefield, saying the president had been misinformed.

Bush made a sobering assessment Monday that criticized the performance of Iraqi troops.

“There have been some cases where, when the heat got on, they left the battlefield — that is unacceptable,” Bush said at a Dec. 20 press conference.

Asked about Bush’s comments, Gen. Babaker B. Shawkat Zebari told AP: “I think the president received misleading information.”

Zebari, Iraq’s only four-star general, insisted none of his troops had deserted from combat. But he acknowledged that some recruits undergoing training had quit after being told they would be posted to the restive city of Fallujah, which was taken in a U.S.-led assault in November.

“Not a single soldier ran away from the battlefield (in Fallujah). It was not a difficult battle. Fallujah was cleaned, and the number of our martyrs (fatalities) was only seven,” Zebari said.