WASHINGTON, Sept 1: President George Bush, already under fire over the invasion of Iraq, tried on Thursday to dismiss criticism of his response to Hurricane Katrina as political grandstanding that undermines national unity.

As he was after the Sept 11, 2001, strikes, the president came under attack for his early public reaction to the killer storm as well as the pace of his return to Washington to take charge of the response.

Mr Bush cut two days from his month-long Texas vacation and arrived at the White House on Wednesday, two days after Katrina battered the Gulf coast.

The president, his approval ratings at one of the lowest points ever in part due to the Iraq issue, fired back in an early morning interview on ABC television, saying: “I hope people don’t play politics during this period.

“This is a natural disaster, the likes of which our country may have never seen before,” he said. “What we need to do as a nation is come together to solve the problem and not play politics. There will be ample time for politics.”

Some critics zeroed in on a photograph of Mr Bush receiving a gift guitar from a country singer on Tuesday — the same day that officials in areas battered by Katrina said they expected the death toll to run in the hundreds.

“The bottom line is he needs to appear much more involved, much more hands on, much more in touch with the reality on the ground. He certainly should not be being photographed with a guitar,” said a Republican congressional aide.

The aide said Mr Bush could have made a formal address to the nation, summoned the US Congress to act, or declared martial law in New Orleans.

Other critics took issue with his four-week stay on his Texas ranch, when he was frequently photographed biking on the property.

“He has to get off his mountain bike and back to work,” Democratic Representative Rahm Emanuel told the Washington Post.

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer said that the Bush administration had not released enough oil from the emergency Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help refineries left short of crude after the storm battered drilling platforms.

“On energy, Americans were expecting a lot more from the President. He took a tiny baby step when a giant step is required,” Schumer said in a statement.

The criticism over Katrina came at a bad time for Bush, with his popularity ratings sinking to around 45 percent, the lowest level of his presidency, and less than four in 10 Americans approving of his handling of Iraq.

It was not the first time Bush, who campaigned for re-election last year as a tough and decisive “war president,” has been criticized for a tardy response to catastrophe.

He took a lot of heat after a tsunami devastated several Asian countries in December, killing more than 200,000 people. And he drew fire for continuing to read to Florida schoolchildren after being told of the September 11 attacks.

Bush later turned those strikes and the global war on terrorism he declared in the aftermath into one of his most potent political weapons.

‘WAITING FOR A LEADER’: The New York Times, in a scathing editorial titled “Waiting for a Leader,” dismissed Bush’s remarks of consolation and support on Wednesday as “one of the worst speeches of his life.”