WASHINGTON, Feb 12: As US President George Bush struggles to answer questions about his military service during the Vietnam war era , a conservative counterattack has begun to try to impugn Democratic presidential contender John Kerry's war record.

A photograph showing Kerry and actress and anti-war activist Jane Fonda taken at a 1970 anti-war rally in Pennsylvania surfaced on a conservative Web site on Monday. It spread across the Internet and showed up on the front page of the Washington Times on Wednesday. TV networks quickly picked up the story.

The newspaper quoted two Republican congressmen, Randy Cunningham of California and Texas' Sam Johnson, both of whom served in the war, as saying the image would diminish Mr Kerry's appeal to Vietnam veterans. Johnson said it made him sick.

The picture shows Fonda listening intently at the rally. Three rows behind her is a fuzzy but recognizable image of Mr Kerry, who also spoke at the demonstration.

Mr Kerry, a Massachusetts senator and probable presidential challenger to Mr Bush in November, became a leader of the anti-war movement after returning from Vietnam, where he was decorated with a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts.

He constantly brings up his heroic war service at campaign rallies. Vietnam war veterans who served with him, and one of whose life Mr Kerry saved, have frequently appeared by his side and in his TV ads.

"It's clear what some of Kerry's opponents will try to do. They want to frame him, not as a valiant war hero but as a long-haired war protester who later as a senator voted against defence spending," said American University political scientist Allan Lichtman.

Catholic University political scientist Mark Rozell agreed. "This is just the start of an attempt to characterize Kerry as someone who was on the wrong side of the culture wars that shook this country in the 1960s and 1970s," he said.

Fonda earned the enduring disgust of many veterans, who called her "Hanoi Jane" after she travelled to North Vietnam in 1972 where she met with communist officials and criticized the US government over government radio.

The flap over Kerry came as the White House struggled to bury old charges that Bush was AWOL during part of his own service in the United States in the Air National Guard.

Many Americans of Bush's generation were anxious to avoid service in Vietnam. Joining the National Guard was seen as way of fulfilling their service requirements at home without being thrust into the middle of the war.

Bush said on Sunday he would provide records on his service with the National Guard but on Wednesday the White House ruled out the blanket release of medical or disciplinary records.

Late on Wednesday, the White House did release a copy of a Jan 6, 1973, dental exam complete with a chart of Bush's teeth that was performed when Bush was at the Dannelly Air National Guard base near Montgomery, Alabama.

On Monday, the Bush team released pay and service records that showed long absences during his final two years of service - a period in which Bush worked on a political campaign in Alabama. Democrats and other critics said the records were inadequate.

"The issue with Bush's service record is less about what he did or didn't do while others of his generation were fighting in Southeast Asia, or his legitimacy as commander-in-chief of our troops now fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Thomas Schaller, a political scientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

"Rather, the more damaging effect of this story is that it strips away Bush's straight-shooting, plain-talking, everyman persona," he said. One problem with Bush's service is that the White House has been unable to produce a single person who remembers serving with him.

Lichtman said it seemed the White House was panicking a little at its failure to squash the story. "They are trying to control a story that can't be controlled. They should release everything they have and change the subject. Harping on Kerry's war and anti-war record just keeps the issue alive," he said. -Reuters