WASHINGTON, Jan 23: US President George W. Bush is more unpopular than any US president ahead of a State of the Union speech since Richard Nixon, who resigned in disgrace in 1974, according to several polls out Tuesday.

A CBS News poll has Bush's overall popularity at just 28 per cent, a record low, with 64 per cent of those polled disapproving his performance.

An ABC-Washington Post poll released late on the eve of the president's Tuesday’s annual speech, shows a 33 per cent approval rating, matching Bush's lowest ratings in May 2006.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll pegged Bush's approval rate at 35 per cent, his lowest rating on the joint survey.

According to the poll, 67 per cent disapprove of his handling of the Iraq situation.

The poll was conducted among 1,007 adults between Jan 17 and 20, and has a 3.1 per cent margin of error.

According to the Post, the last two presidents to deliver a State of the Union address with lower poll numbers were Nixon in 1974 -- when the Watergate political scandal ended his presidency -- and Harry Truman during the Korean War in 1952.

In the ABC-Washington Post poll, 71 per cent said that the country is seriously heading in the wrong direction -- the highest rating of national pessimism in more than a decade, according to the Post.

A majority -- 51 per cent -- expressed strong disapproval of Bush's performance, against 17 per cent who strongly approved.

The Washington Post-ABC News telephone poll was conducted between Jan 16 and 19, among a random national sample of 1,000 adults, and the results have a three-point error margin.

In the CBS News poll, 29 per cent of those surveyed thought that more US troops should be sent to Iraq, and only 28 per cent said that Bush shared their priorities.

The telephone poll was conducted among 1,168 adults between Jan 18-21, and has a plus or minus three point margin of error.

According to a report from London, an opinion poll commissioned by the BBC World Service suggests there is widespread disquiet about the US role in Iraq and its other foreign policy priorities.

The findings indicate that the Bush administration’s toppling of Saddam Hussein has had several profound and unintended consequences. “One has been the way in which the destruction of both the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and of Iraq's military machine, has opened the way for the rise of Iran as a major regional player.”

Another crucial but less tangible problem is that the US's image around the world is being seriously damaged by the chaos in Iraq and the image problems are only getting worse.

The global image of the US has significantly deteriorated over the past 12 months, as the chaos in Iraq has deepened. Overall, the opinion poll sampled the views of 26,000 people in 25 countries.

Three in every four of those questioned disapproved of how the US government was dealing with the crisis in Iraq. The poll did not just deal with Iraq. It also asked questions about the US handling of Guantanamo detainees; the Israel-Hezbollah war; Iran's nuclear programme; global warming; and North Korea's nuclear programme.

In every case, a majority of those questioned disapproved of America's handling of the issue concerned.

The poll underscores conclusions drawn from several other surveys -- that anti-Americanism is on the rise, and the more the US flexes its hard power — the more it deploys troops abroad or talks tough diplomatically — the more it seems to weaken its ability to influence the world.

— Agencies