US:Former US vice-president Al Gore has severely criticised President George Bush, calling him a lawbreaker, a liar and a man with the blood of thousands of innocent lives on his hands, it was reported yesterday.
Mr Gore, who insists he has no plans to run for president again, launched his new book The Assault On Reason, a 308-page attack on the current president.
He accused the president of sharing former president Richard Nixon's hunger for power and wrote that Mr Bush "has exposed Americans abroad and Americans in every US town and city to a greater danger of attack because of his arrogance and wilfulness".
"History will surely judge America's decision to invade and occupy [ Iraq] . . . as a decision that was not only tragic but absurd," the former vice-president wrote.
"Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack . . . then that means the president took us to war when he didn't have to and that over 3,000 American service members have been killed . . . unnecessarily."
And in relation to the warrantless surveillance programme in the US, Mr Gore wrote: "President Bush has repeatedly violated the law for six years."
Mr Gore said that the president does not need the enhanced domestic surveillance powers he has sought and received, but that the competent use of the information already available would have been sufficient.
He also called for the US to rejoin the international community and lead the war on crises involving global warming, water, terrorism and pandemics such as HIV/Aids.