THE PRESIDENT'S BRAIN IS MISSING

THE PRESIDENT'S BRAIN IS MISSING

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By Mark Ellis, Foreign Editor

PRESIDENT George Bush was laid bare to the world as a bumbling embarrassment yesterday when he couldn't think up an answer to a reporter's question.

His keynote address to the American nation, watched by millions, saw the president at his cringe-making worst.

In the glare of the live television cameras he grimaced, sighed, rambled and chuckled under his breath, before saying he could not think of a single mistake since the September 11 attacks.

Last night American pundits were far from impressed by the performance of their leader.

For 17-minutes all went smoothly as the president delivered a prepared statement about Iraq in only his third solo appearance before reporters at the White House.

Then came the bombshell. He was asked to name his biggest mistake since September 11.

"I wish you'd have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it," Mr Bush appeared to joke, before taking a long pause.

"Er, I'm sure historians will look back and say, 'Gosh, he could have done it better this way, or that way'. I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer.. but it hadn't yet."

Even journalists familiar with the President's 'Bush-isms', a mix of misspoken words and grammatical errors, were taken aback by his latest ramblings and cast knowing glances.

Mr Bush zig-zagged from explaining his decisions to invade Afghanistan and Iraq to his firm belief that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Then he mentioned the discovery of mustard gas on a turkey farm in Libya for good measure.

Next came his most jaw-dropping reply: "I don't want to sound like I have made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't. You just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one."

About half of the 15 questions Bush fielded gave him the chance to admit a mistake or express regret for his administration's actions in Iraq, or on the 2001 attacks, but he never did.

However, he did admit for the first time Iraqis are not entirely pleased with the situation.

In a Forrest Gump moment he stated: "They're not happy they're occupied. I wouldn't be happy if I were occupied either."

Later, wrapping up the press conference, he said: "It's a pretty sombre assessment today. One thing is for certain, though, about me (pause) and the world has learned this (pause), when I say something, I mean it. And the credibility of the United States is incredibly important for keeping world peace and freedom."

The news conference was Bush's fourth major attempt to rally the country behind his war plans. He gave an interview to Diane Sawyer of ABC TV in December, delivered his State of the Union address in January and appeared on NBC's Meet the Press in February.

None of the earlier appearances were considered particularly effective, and recent polls show the president's job-approval rating below 50 per cent.

Tuesday's hour-long session was being compared yesterday to his lacklustre performance on NBC's Meet the Press, which his own supporters criticised as unsure and bumbling.

His first prime time news conference for more than a year was meant to reassure Americans worried by the rising death toll of US soldiers in Iraq and a recent spate of kidnappings.

The president needed to show he was still in charge and had a credible plan to restore order in Iraq, but White House commentators were left sceptical.

Politics professor Robert T Starks, called Bush "an abomination to a great nation", after watching his performance on TV in Chicago. The 60-year-old political science professor at Northeastern Illinois University, branded Bush's answers to reporters' questions "vapid, confusing and evasive".

And veteran Washington analyst Stephen Hess, who worked in the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations, said: "It was a strange performance. It was like one of the channels on my old TV set that keeps going in and out of focus. There were moments when I thought he was strong and had a message, and then he would sort of fade out."

Bush needed to impress. A poll by the respected Newsweek magazine last week showed support for his handling of terror has slumped to 59 per cent from 70 per cent in January.

Most polls, including one yesterday, show Bush and John Kerry, his main Democrat rival, are neck-and-neck in the race for the White House. Professor George Edwards, editor of Presidential Studies Quarterly said: "There is no doubt that the president has been slipping, and the reason for the press conference was to try to arrest that slippage in the polls.

"It is not a matter of life or death, but the stakes were very high. It didn't look very impressive or reassuring.

"He was losing credibility and losing approval for his war on terrorism. He needed to go out there and try to shore up his support."

Jill Zack, 26, a marketing manager from New Mexico, was unmoved by Bush's address, accusing the president of changing his story to justify the war.

She said: "We went there because we were scared they had weapons of mass destruction, but now it's about Iraqi freedom, but is that our desire or their desire?"

President Bush also blundered by repeating Condoleezza Rice's gaffe of omitting Lockerbie from a list of terrorist atrocities.

The President listed some of the world's worst atrocities including September 11, the Madrid massacre and the Bali bombing, but made no mention of the 1998 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people.

Last week Rice did not mention the atrocity while giving evidence to the US Commission investigating September 11.

The President's National Security Advisor issued a swift apology after realising her mistake, saying: "We did not include attacks that were the work of a government, such as the Libyans' bombing of Pan Am 103.

"I want to apologise to you and all the families who lost relatives on that terrible day."

Libyan Abdel Baset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi is serving a life sentence in Scotland after being found guilty of the bombing.

Lockerbie campaigner Dr Jim Swire yesterday hit out at Mr Bush for failing to recognise the outrage among other terrorist horrors.

The GP, who lost his daughter Flora on Pan Am Flight 103, said intelligence chiefs made the same mistakes with the Lockerbie disaster as they seem to have with September 11.

He added: "It is strange Bush did not mention Lockerbie when talking about outrages.

"Lockerbie was the worst terrorist attack to happen in the west before September 11.

"But perhaps the reason for this is that is was a definite defeat for the intelligence community. They had specific intelligence about what was going to happen before Lockerbie but failed to act on it.

"I think it is absurd anyone declare a war against terrorism and fail to study the lessons of a past defeat. I have always believed they had prior warning about Lockerbie and this may be why he did not wish to mention it."