By ERICA WERNER

WASHINGTON - Ex-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other top former Pentagon brass denied any cover-up and rejected personal responsibility Wednesday for the military’s bungled response to Army Ranger Pat Tillman’s friendly-fire death in Afghanistan.

“I know that I would not engage in a cover-up. I know that no one in the White House suggested such a thing to me. I know that the gentlemen sitting next to me are men of enormous integrity and would not participate in something like that,” Rumsfeld told a House committee.

It was Rumsfeld’s first public appearance on Capitol Hill since President Bush replaced him with Robert Gates late last year. At a hearing he reiterated previous testimony to investigators that he didn’t have early knowledge that Tillman was cut down on April 22, 2004, by fellow Rangers, not by enemy militia as was initially claimed.

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