http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/10/29/wblar129.xml&sSheet=/news/2001/10/29/ixhome.html

American media puts Bush on the spot

By Ben Fenton in Washington
(Filed: 29/10/2001)

THE BUSH administration was fighting on multiple
fronts yesterday to repel growing accusations that it
is losing control of the war against terrorism.

But there was little evidence that President Bush's
personal popularity was being eroded and opinion
polls showed that Americans remained confident
that they were right to be fighting Osama bin Laden
and his al-Qa'eda network.

Criticism of the pace of military events in Afghanistan
and the increasing number of deaths among civilians
there has been compounded by condemnation of
the White House's handling of anthrax scares at
home.

The cover of Time magazine summed up a bad week
for Mr Bush, showing a picture of a pressured
president in the Oval Office with the words "On the
Spot" beneath.

Other press reports in America suggested that the
administration had been guilty of "confusion and
drift" over the anthrax attacks that have killed three
people and paralysed postal services in Washington
and New York.

The Los Angeles Times called the handling of the
anthrax situation "a debacle". The newspaper
added: "Public confidence in the government's ability
to handle this and future crises has been shaken. It
must be restored quickly."

An opinion poll for Newsweek showed that Mr Bush's
personal approval rating, at 85 per cent, was down
only three points since last week, however 43 per
cent of those surveyed thought that he did not have
a proper strategy for dealing with anthrax.

The perception that the White House deliberately
played down the seriousness of the outbreak,
despite knowing that at least one letter contained
sophisticated and lethal spores of the disease, was
reported across the American media.

It was suggested by more than one person that the
tactic meant that postal workers in Washington, two
of whom have died from inhalation anthrax, were
not given information that could have saved them.

Ray Kelly, a former director of the United States
Customs Service, said: "There is a feeling that
government is not in control. There is no indication
we know where this is coming from or that law
enforcement is hot on the trail of anybody."

A senior FBI agent was quoted as saying: "We need
to make an arrest soon because the anxiety level
out there needs to be ratcheted down." The
prosecution of the war in Afghanistan was not giving
much solace, with each cycle of the news providing
more evidence of inaccurate bombing by the
American forces.

At the same time, influential voices, including James
Woolsey, a former director of the CIA, were calling
on the Pentagon to "take the gloves off with the
bombing campaign".

Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, defended
the progress of the war, saying: "It is going very
much as expected, it is going very much as
predicted. From day one, the president has said and
I have said repeatedly that this will be a long, long
effort. It's not a quagmire at all, it's been three
weeks that we've been engaged in this."

Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, added:
"This is going to be a long process, not one battle.
This will be a series of efforts to make sure that
Afghanistan is not a place where terrorists can be
harboured."