The latest misstep was over presidential TV-viewing habits, which it turns out are not exactly what spokesman Ari Fleischer made them out to be.

The White House communications team had carefully cultivated a profile of President George W. Bush as an executive who leaves the daily war planning to his generals, while avoiding the saturation television coverage of the war.

But friends say Bush is glued to his television, discussing breaking developments with his aides.

Roland Betts, a New York real estate developer and long-time Bush friend, told The New York Times how the president spent the first weekend of the war in front of the television at his Camp David retreat.

During the first major bombings of Baghdad, Fleischer had depicted a president with little interests in the TV coverage.

"I don't think he needs to watch TV to know what was about to unfold," Fleischer said.

Betts had a different take.

"He is just totally immersed," Betts said of the president, adding that Bush immediately discussed each new development with national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

Bush started laughing when a television correspondent accurately reported the White House's official message, that president was not watching TV while at Camp David.

That story forced Fleischer into a convoluted attempt at explaining away the discrepancy on Monday morning, when the spokesman said he called Betts "because I wanted to know if everything that he said was quoted accurately. He said it was."

The White House has refused to comment on military operations, referring all questions to the Defense Department and to military spokesmen in the Gulf.

But president regularly emerges to denounce the litany of atrocities committed against the Iraqi people by members of Iraq's ruling party or by Saddam Hussein's secret police.

During these statements, Bush always tosses out some fresh detail on the torture inflicted on those who want to help the US-British troops.

The aim is to convince the US public that their troops are fighting a war of liberation, despite the daily pictures of bombings and graphic stories of the horrors of combat.

The White House message has had trouble being heard above stories in the general press questioning the war plan, given tough Iraqi resistance and the population's subdued welcome to the troops.

The White House also must overcome the expectation, fostered by its own top officials before the war, that the conflict would be short.

Sources close to the president spoke of his "frustration" at critical news stories, and his spokesman insisted that Bush was always prepared for a difficult war.

Nonetheless, Bush had to make a last-minute deletion in one of his statements, which said military operations were running ahead of the expected schedule.

But he didn't tell his spokesman of the deletion soon enough. The statement had already been given to the press corps, with the deleted line still intact, before he could take it back.

SPACE.WIRE