The rebuttal wastes no time in attacking the Starr report for detailing President Clinton's sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

"It is plain that 'sex' is precisely what this four-and-a-half year investigation has boiled down to," it says in the first paragraph.

"The President has acknowledged and apologised for an inappropriate sexual relationship with Ms Lewinsky, so there is no need to describe that relationship in ugly detail.

"No one denies that the relationship was wrong or that the President was responsible."

The rebuttal concludes that "many of the lurid allegations ... are simply part of a hit-and-run smear campaign."

The rebuttal says the president did not commit perjury when he told Paula Jones' lawyers in January that he did not have "sexual relationships" with Monica Lewinsky, because he did not think he was lying nor did he intend to lie.

"The OIC argues that oral sex falls within the definition of sexual relations and that the President therefore lied when he said he denied having sexual relations.

"It is, however, the President's good faith and reasonable interpretation that oral sex was outside the special definition of sexual relations provided to him."

"Literally true statements cannot be the basis for a perjury prosecution, even if a witness intends to mislead the questioner," it continues.

"Likewise, answers to an inherently ambiguous question cannot constitute perjury. "

Also charges that Clinton lied about touching Monica Lewinsky's breasts and genitalia do not amount to perjury, the rebuttal says, because "normally, a perjury prosecution may not rest on the testimony of a single witness."

The rebuttal says the charge that the President's false denial of an improper relationship with Monica Lewinsky amounted to abuse of power could not be sustained because: "It would follow, therefore, that no official could mount a defence to impeachment, or to ethics charges, or to a criminal investigation while remaining in office, for anything other than an immediate admission of guilt will necessarily be misleading."

The Office of the Independent Counsel is itself accused of an abuse of authority by trying to "invade the confidential relationship between the President and his most senior advisors and lawyers."