US: The US President, Mr George Bush, received a boost to his re-election campaign yesterday with the news that employ- ment increased last month at the fastest pace in nearly four years, writes Conor O'Clery in Washington.
At the same time the White House found itself facing new charges of failing to co-operate with the independent commission investigating events leading up to 9/11 attacks by withholding key documents.
Non-agricultural jobs in- creased by 308,000 in March, the US Labour Department said, three time the 103,000 predicted by economists.
Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry has been sharply critical of the administration for sluggish job growth, which has been averaging 75,000 a month in the last half year.
The US has lost 2.3 million jobs in three years, and Mr Kerry has said that Mr Bush could be the first president since Herbert Hoover to end a term with fewer jobs than when he started.
The unemployment rate, in a separate survey, rose to 5.7 per cent from the two-year low of 5.6 per cent seen in January and February, indicating that the rate of new jobs is not keeping up with demand.
The White House claimed that tax cuts were responsible for the fastest one-month growth in jobs in 20 years and Mr Bush is renewing his push for Congress to make the tax cuts permanent.
"Today the statistics show we added 308,000 jobs for the month of March," the President told a meeting in West Virginia.
"The economy is strong, it is getting stronger . . . We need to make sure the tax cuts are permanent."
Mr Kerry has proposed creating 10 million jobs over four years with a plan that includes a tax credit for companies which create jobs in the US.
Meanwhile, the commission investigating 9/11 has pressed the White House to explain why it has blocked the handover of classified foreign policy and counterterrorism documents from the Clinton administration.
The White House has confirmed that it has withheld nearly 9,000 of 11,000 classified documents from president Clinton's files. These had been gathered by the National Archives over the last two years in response to requests from the commission, according to the New York Times.
White House spokesman Mr Scott McClellan said some documents were withheld as they were highly sensitive or unrelated, but said the administration was providing the commission with access "to all the information they need to do their job".
Nevertheless the withholding of the documents adds to a perception that the White House is not co-operating fully with the commission.
Mr Bush originally opposed setting up the inquiry and at first refused to allow his national security adviser, Dr Condoleezza Rice, to testify under oath in public. Dr Rice will now give sworn evidence to the commission on Thursday.
Former Clinton aides said the documents withheld concern the Clinton administration's efforts against al-Qaeda.