WASHINGTON, Sept 7: Senator Hillary Clinton fuelled the political debate in the United States over Hurricane Katrina on Wednesday, insisting on an independent inquiry into the federal response and sharply rejecting President George Bush’s bid to lead the probe himself.

“I don’t think the government should be investigating itself,” Mrs Clinton told CNN as the polemics intensified over last week’s storm, which left New Orleans in chaos and thousands feared dead on the US Gulf Coast.

“I don’t think either the president or the Congress can conduct the kind of objective, independent investigation that we need,” the New York Democrat and former first lady said on CBS television.

Mrs Clinton, considered a potential White House candidate for 2008, has taken a prominent role in criticizing the Bush administration for the sluggish early efforts to dispatch troops and relief supplies to hurricane-hit areas.

She wrote Mr Bush a critical letter over the weekend and visited evacuees in the Houston, Texas, Astrodome stadium. She held a major news conference on Tuesday before making the rounds of television stations.

Senate Republicans have announced investigations into the government’s handling of Katrina. Mr Bush, who has acknowledged shortcomings, promised on Tuesday to lead an inquiry into ‘what went wrong’.

But Hillary Clinton is pushing for the creation of an independent ‘Katrina commission’ along the lines of the panel reluctantly named by Mr Bush that issued a voluminous report on the Sept 11, 2001, attacks.

“I think we sort of have lost track of the fact this is a government that has to be accountable to the people of our country,” Mrs Clinton told CNN.

“This is not a game. This has to be a serious inquiry that people have confidence in, that will help us understand what did go wrong. The sooner we know that, the better.”—AFP