Politicians and anti-war protesters have reacted with outrage at comments made by the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, on the anti-war movement yesterday.
Green Party TD, Mr John Gormley, dismissed Ms Harney's mention of the Green Party as one of the groups stirring up anti-American sentiment as "a panic reaction.
"She's trying to scaremonger and mud-sling to put people off the anti-war protest, even though recent polls show PD supporters are opposed to the use of Shannon by US troops," Mr Gormley added last night.
"We are clearly not anti-American, we never have been," Mr Gormley added. "She'd be better off listening to what her own supporters have to say and concentrate on making a clear statement on her position," he told The Irish Times.
The Labour Party spokesman on Foreign Affairs, Mr Michael D. Higgins, called her comments "offensive, cheap and unfair" and said she was trying to smear an anti-war movement that had the support of 100,000 people.
"Irish foreign policy is conditioned by Ireland as a sovereign State and she's mixing economic and foreign policy together in an attempt at ingratiation with the present Bush administration," Mr Higgins told The Irish Times.
Mr Higgins said Ms Harney had interfered in an area of foreign policy and was trying to make gains by "innuendo".
He said Ms Harney had shown herself to be out of touch "not just with public opinion, but with the views of her own supporters as expressed in the recent MRBI poll".
The NGO Peace Alliance called on Ms Harney to apologise to anti-war protesters.
"I demand an apology from our Tánaiste, who by her words is casting a slur both on their actions for peace and their integrity as thinking Irish people," the co-ordinator of the NGO Peace Alliance, Mr Brendan Butler, said.
"Is she also accusing the heads of both the Catholic Church and the Church of England as being infected with anti- Americanism?" Mr Butler asked.
The chairman of the Irish Anti-War Movement, Mr Richard Boyd-Barrett, called Ms Harney's comments "utter nonsense and a disgraceful response from a discredited Government".
He said the Government didn't want to deal with the arguments raised and was trying to tarnish the anti-war movement.
"American citizens have featured strongly at all of our rallies and marches, we are anti-war, not anti-American," said Mr Boyd-Barrett last night, adding that the Irish Anti-War Movement stood in "total solidarity with the millions of US citizens who are against any military action in Iraq.
"This is typical of Ms Harney and her Government, who are not representative of the ordinary people but of big business and corporate companies," Mr Boyd-Barrett said.