Iraq fallout hits Bush

By David Bamford BBC correspondent in Washington

Popular approval of George W Bush's handling of the Iraq issue appears to have dropped sharply in the last few weeks as US casualties mount and wrangling intensifies over allegations of official misinformation in the president's State of the Union address.

Continuing questions about Iraq are proving difficult for the White House

A majority of Americans remain generally supportive, but the figure has fallen in just over two weeks by nearly a fifth - to 58% according to a joint Washington Post-ABC news poll.

More than half of those polled - 52% - say the number of US casualties has become unacceptable. Despite this, more than seven in 10 say the US military should continue to keep troops in Iraq.

A poll by the US magazine Newsweek puts President Bush's overall approval rating at 55%, down 16 points from mid-April when Baghdad fell to American-led forces, and down by 30 points from the period immediately following the 11 September 2001 attacks.

The survey suggests nearly half of Americans have concluded President Bush misinterpreted intelligence reports on whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Some 38% believe the US Government deliberately misled the public, according to the Newsweek poll.

Scenting scandal

In the meantime, Democratic presidential hopefuls in the US are witnessing with barely hidden glee the disarray within the Bush administration over the African uranium issue.

Presidential hopeful Howard Dean has called for heads to roll

Smelling political blood, several are seeking to expand the frenzy beyond the confines of the Washington Beltway into a national debate about the integrity of Mr Bush's top officials. Republicans are dismissing it as nonsense.

Howard Dean, an opponent of the Iraq war , was first out of the starting gate. He appeared on breakfast TV on Friday declaring that any officials who withheld information from President Bush over the false uranium claim should lose their jobs.

"Whoever it was who withheld that information needs to resign," Mr Dean told ABC Television's Good Morning America programme.

He was dismissive about the current Congressional inquiry into whether the government ignored CIA warnings about faulty intelligence prior to the State of the Union address.

"We need a full-scale bipartisan investigation outside the Congress," he said, arguing that the Republican majority was "stonewalling" efforts to get to the truth.

'Troubling' reports

Other Democratic contenders, anxious not to be left behind also called for a full-scale inquiry.

John McCain, who stood against Mr Bush, also wants tough action

Senator Joseph Lieberman, who unlike Mr Dean supported the war in Iraq, described the reports as troubling.

"We cannot and should not play fast and loose with our intelligence information and however it happened we now know that the information in the State of the Union was false," he said.

One Republican Senator, John McCain - a rival to George Bush in the 2000 presidential election - added his voice, saying they needed to find out who was responsible and then fire them.

The debate has been ignited by a report on CBS television on Thursday saying the White House had ignored a request by the CIA to remove references to intelligence reports that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger in central Africa.

Republican leaders in Washington dismissed Democrat demands as politically motivated last week when President Bush and his senior officials were away on the African tour.

Mounting disquiet

So far the American public has been ambivalent about efforts to undermine Mr Bush's efforts to engineer the demise of Saddam Hussein and establish a government in Iraq with which the US can live.

But there is mounting disquiet first over the growing number of US military casualties caused by Iraqi hit-and-run attacks.

A sense that the US is becoming bogged down in a costly long-term presence is also creating unease.

The Pentagon estimates its military bill in Iraq at nearly $4bn a month.

General Tommy Franks told the Senate on Thursday that US forces will probably need to stay in Iraq for years to come, though he could not give an outside estimate.

Senators from both the Democratic and Republican parties voted in favour of Nato and United Nations involvement in establishing security in Iraq and rebuilding the country's infrastructure.