US: Approval of US President George Bush's handling of terrorism has fallen from 65 per cent to 57 per cent in the last month. This coincides with harsh criticism of his handling of the terror threat before September 11th by former White House counter-terrorism aide Mr Richard Clarke.
The poll was taken for Newsweek at the end of last week, immediately following Mr Clarke's televised testimony to an independent commission investigating the al-Qaeda attacks on the US.
Half of those polled thought, however, that Mr Clarke, who created a political furore by accusing Mr Bush of treating the threat as "important" but not "urgent" despite frequent warnings, was acting from personal or political motivation.
The former aide yesterday accused the White House of waging a "campaign to destroy me professionally and personally" in its reactions to his testimony.
Several White House officials have attacked Mr Clarke's credibility, including his former boss, national security adviser Ms Condoleezza Rice who said his charges were "scurrilous".
Mr Clarke fired back on NBC's Meet the Press yesterday by reading a handwritten letter in which the president praised him, on his retirement last year after 10 years as counter-terrorism chief, for having "served our nation with distinction and honour". While the president "thinks I served with distinction and honour, the rest of his staff is out there to destroy me . . . for having the temerity to suggest that a policy issue should be discussed", Mr Clarke said.
The Vice-President, Mr Dick Cheney, told Time magazine: "I don't hold him in high regard," and accused Mr Clarke of using September 11th to promote his book Against all Enemies.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mr Bill Frist accused the former official of telling "two entirely different stories under oath", one to the 9/11 commission and one to a closed congressional inquiry in July 2002.
Senator Frist demanded that Mr Clarke's evidence to Congress be declassified to show that he had been "effusive in his praise for the actions of the Bush administration".
Mr Clarke responded by calling for the declassification of all the evidence given to Congress about intelligence before September 11th, together with the private testimony of Dr Rice to the independent commission, and all e-mails and memos between himself and Ms Rice in the eight months before September 11th, 2001.
Meanwhile, Mr Thomas Kean, the Republican chairman of the 10-member bipartisan commission, yesterday appealed to Ms Rice to testify in public under oath before the commission.
While recognising there were arguments about separation of powers, "we do feel unanimously as a commission that she should testify in public" about "a tragedy of this magnitude", he told Fox News .
"There are no smoking guns," he said, "that's what makes this so absurd, it's a political blunder of the first order."
The national security adviser, who was scheduled to appear on CBS's 60 Minutes last night, has been criticised by both Democrats and Republicans for giving media interviews while snubbing the commission.
Democratic presidential candidate Mr John Kerry said: "If Condoleezza Rice can find time to do 60 Minutes on television before the American people, she ought to find 60 minutes to speak to the commission under oath."
Among Republican figures urging her yesterday to testify under oath were Defence department adviser Mr Richard Pearle, who described her refusal as "unwise" and Congressman Chris Shay who said it was "stupid" not to appear and counter the statements of someone who "put a knife in the back of the president". Mr Clarke yesterday denied another charge from Senator Frist that the publication of his book last week was "an appalling act of profiteering".
He said it was intended as a "Christmas book" but was held up for three months by White House lawyers.
Senator Kerry also criticised the White House for its "massive character assassination" of Mr Clarke.
He cited other examples of White House attacks on former officials, including ex-treasury secretary Mr Paul O'Neill who was fired in December 2002 after publicly questioning the need for additional tax cuts, and Medicare accountant Mr Richard Foster who revealed he was not allowed to tell Congress the truth about the high cost of the administration's Medicare programme.
Others who have incurred the disfavour of the White House include former economic adviser Mr Lawrence Lindsey, who challenged the Iraq war cost estimates, retired marine general Mr Anthony Zinni and former army chief of staff Gen Eric Shinseki, who accurately said more troops would be needed than the Pentagon predicted.
A federal grand jury is currently investigating whether the White House illegally disclosed the fact that the wife of former ambassador, Mr Joseph Wilson, who challenged Mr Bush's claims on Iraq's nuclear capacity, was a CIA officer.
Mr Clarke yesterday enlarged on his charge that the war on Iraq undermined the war on terrorism.
It inflamed ideologues in the Middle East, it made al-Qaeda more "hydra-headed" and it diverted military resources from destroying al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, he told NBC.
He also said that CIA director Mr George Tenet was going into the Oval Office "with his hair on fire" every day before September 11th to warn about an impending al-Qaeda attack but "it took 100 meetings before they got around to it".
In the Newsweek poll 65 per cent of respondents said Mr Clarke's testimony had not affected their views of Mr Bush, 17 per cent said it made them view him less favourably, and 10 per cent said more favourably.
Two-thirds said the Clinton administration did not take the threat of terror seriously enough, while six in 10 said the Bush administration has taken the threat as seriously as it should.
The poll found the presidential race between Mr Bush and Democrat Mr John Kerry tied and Mr Bush's job approval at 49 per cent.