Records that could have settled a political dispute over President George W. Bush's service in the Air National Guard three decades ago were accidentally destroyed, the Pentagon said today.
Microfilm payroll records of large numbers of service members, including Mr Bush, were ruined in 1996 and 1997 in a project to save large, brittle rolls of microfilm, a Defence Finance and Accounting Service spokesman said.
Mr Bush's whereabouts during his service as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard in the United States during the Vietnam War have become an election-year issue, with some Democrats accusing him of shirking his duty.
The destroyed files kept in Denver on deteriorating 2,000-foot rolls of microfilm covered three months of a period in 1972 and 1973 when Mr Bush's claims of service with the guard in Alabama are in question.
The White House said it has already been shown that Mr Bush performed his duties in the National Guard.
"We released all of the documents that are available. We made that clear at the time and they demonstrate that the president fulfilled his duties in the National Guard at the time. And there is nothing new in this report," said White House spokeswoman Ms Claire Buchan.
Last February, the White House released hundreds of pages of Mr Bush's military records. Those records did not provide new evidence to place him in Alabama during the latter part of 1972, when some Democrats say he was basically absent without leave.
The White House said today it had included a footnote to those earlier records saying that files for the 3rd quarter of 1972 had apparently been lost in microfilm processing.
"This whole thing was inadvertent. It happened a long time ago at a files storage site in Denver," a senior defence official, who asked not to be identified, said.