WASHINGTON: The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, was attempting to defuse a spat with the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, on Friday over the number of mistakes made by the US so far in Iraq. Ms Rice said her relationship with Mr Rumsfeld “couldn’t be better”, even after he had told a radio interviewer that he did not know what she was talking about when she told a UK think-tank last week that the US had made thousands of “tactical errors” in Iraq.

The row has come at a time when public faith in the Republicans’ ability to defend the country is at an all -time low. An AP/Ipsos poll published on Friday found that Americans no longer saw Republicans as any better than Democrats on defence, their flagship issue for decades. Mr Bush also recorded his lowest rating in that poll since taking office, with only 36% of respondents saying he was doing a good job.

The White House was on the defensive once more on Friday over legal documents alleging that Mr Bush had broken his ban on leaking classified information to bolster the case for war in 2003.

The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said he could not talk about the documents as they were part of a court case involving a former vice-presidential aide, Lewis “Scooter” Libby. But Mr McClellan said the president sometimes found it necessary to “declassify information in the public interest”.

Meanwhile, Ms Rice was under pressure to explain her “tactical errors” remark. Mr Rumsfeld was withering in his response, suggesting she did not understand warfare. “I don’t know what she was talking about, to be perfectly honest,” he told a radio station in Fargo, North Dakota, earlier this week.

“The reality in war is this ... The enemy watches what you do and then adjusts to that, so you have to constantly adjust and change your tactics ... If someone says well, that’s a tactical mistake, then I guess it’s a lack of understanding ... of what warfare is about.” On Thursday, Ms Rice said he had not seen what she had said. “I guess I shouldn’t use figures of speech,” she added.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service