UK anti-terrorist officials alarmed at US tactics

Senior British officials responsible for countering al-Qaida terrorism are becoming increasingly concerned about the Bush administration's handling of the problem.
They say that imprecise or exaggerated warnings of attacks merely serve to encourage panic, and give gratuitous propaganda victories to the terrorists.

One official described a blanket warning by Dick Cheney, the American vice-president, last month about possible attacks on apartment blocks in the US as being so vague as to be meaningless. Another British official put it down to "back-covering".

There is also deep concern about the rhetoric employed by senior members of the Bush administration, including Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, and John Ashcroft, the attorney general - and even Mr Bush himself. Some suspects have been described as serious terrorists despite a lack of evidence against them, with remarks which would be prejudicial to a fair trial.

Mr Rumsfeld's description of prisoners at the US camp at Guantanamo Bay as some of the worst al-Qaida terrorists, and pictures of the inmates given out by the Pentagon, were described by Whitehall officials as "scandalous".

One official said: "American politicians are only concerned with American audiences." Another described the rhetoric, and the US refusal to acknowledge the Geneva convention, as "not benchmarks of a civilised society".