Administration Hits Back at McClellan

President Bush is "surprised" and "disappointed" by a new book by his former spokesman that charges the president with using a "propaganda campaign" to sell the "unnecessary" Iraq war to the American public.

"He doesn't recognize this as the Scott McClellan that he hired and confided in and worked with for so many years," Dana Perino, the current presidential press secretary, told reporters yesterday as Bush flew to Utah aboard Air Force One.

In the book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," McClellan says he still likes and admires Bush - but claims the president's hands-off management style led aides to run a "permanent campaign" under his name.

From Stockholm, Sweden, meanwhile, where she is attending an international conference on Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice rejected McClellan's allegation that the administration misled the American public about the reasons for the war.

Rice would not comment specifically on his claims, but said Bush was honest and forthright about the reasons for the war. She also said she remained convinced that toppling Saddam Hussein was right and necessary.

"The president was very clear about the reasons for going to war," she told reporters at a news conference with Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.

McClellan is scathing in his criticism of former colleagues, including Vice President Dick Cheney, who he says led him to put out a false picture about the investigation of Cheney's deputy, Scooter Libby.

McClellan, the first Bush insider to write a book criticizing his former boss, also blames the news media for being soft on Bush and serving as "complicit enablers" in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Former co-workers were outraged by what they deemed as McClellan's betrayal.

"If he thinks he's going to ingratiate himself to his critics, he's sorely mistaken, and unfortunately, the only friends he had, he just lost," said Dan Bartlett, who served as White House counselor.

Ari Fleischer, who preceded McClellan as Bush's spokesman, said he was "heartbroken and stumped" by the book.

Perino said, "Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House."

Fleischer said, "If Scott felt this, why didn't he ever come to me privately and express it, or why did he take the press-secretary job if he thought the president and the White House were disseminating propaganda?"

Associated Press also contributed to this report.

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