US: The position of US Secretary of State Colin Powell in the Bush administration has been called into question following the publication of Bob Woodward's book about the run-up to the war on Iraq, with a number of newspapers saying Mr Powell should have resigned because of his doubts about invading Iraq.
The book, Plan of Attack, is also proving explosive for the White House, as Democrats have seized upon charges that Saudi Arabia promised President Bush that it would lower oil prices to help his re-election, and that Mr Bush diverted $700 million without telling Congress to prepare secretly for the Iraq war.
Mr Powell has been most seriously affected by the fall-out from the book.
The Wall Street Journal said, "If Mr Powell disagreed so passionately about Iraq, the more honourable path would have been to resign - before the war."
The New York Times said "knowing that Mr Powell thought the invasion was a bad idea doesn't make him look better - it makes his inaction puzzling and disappointing." Mr Powell admitted he talked to Mr Woodward - at the president's request - but denied he was "semi-despondent" in the run-up to the war, that he was frozen out of planning or that he was hardly on speaking terms with the leading hawk, Vice-President Dick Cheney.
Powell critics in the administration have been cited as saying that by portraying himself as more far-sighted that Mr Bush over Iraq, he had damaged the President in an election year, especially as his unheeded warnings have come true.
"I'm not in the doghouse with anybody that counts," Mr Powell said in response to reports that rifts in the administration had deepened over the book.
He was "glad" he said that the president had gone to war, and "It is just not true to say that Mr Cheney and I are not communicating."
Mr Powell also said he could not recall terming a policy group under Mr Cheney - which includes several Jewish members - the "Gestapo office", and said he had called Defence Undersecretary Mr Douglas Feith to say that kind of language was "wrong and inappropriate".
Democratic presidential candidate Mr John Kerry angrily criticised Mr Bush over the alleged secret White House deal over oil. He called it "outrageous and unacceptable to the people of America." Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, said the book was accurate, but that Saudi Arabia could not influence the oil price situation.
Prince Bandar, the Saudi envoy to the US for 20 years, is close to the Bush family and according to Woodward was privately informed of the war plan in January 2003, two days before Mr Powell.
Mr Woodward claimed that Mr Bush "approved 30 projects costing $700 million" to finance secret preparation for the Iraq war, using money voted through Congress for Afghanistan and the war on terrorism, and that Congress "had no real knowledge or involvement" in the spending.
At a Senate hearing yesterday, in response to Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy, Deputy Defence Secretary Mr Paul Wolfowitz denied that any of the funds were diverted exclusively for Iraq, and claimed they were for the "broader war on terrorism".
Mr Woodward said Mr Bush authorised the funds at the request of Gen Tommy Franks for airfields and fuel infrastructure in Kuwait to prepare for war against Iraq while the world was focused on Afghanistan.
Mr Woodward relates in the book that Mr Bush told the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, on his St Patrick's Day visit to the White House on March 13th, 2003, a week before the war began, that French President Jacques Chirac was a "bully" to the east European nations over Iraq.
"Chirac has pushed it to the point where there's a huge anti-French backlash in America," Mr Bush told the Taoiseach, referred to by Mr Woodward as "Bernie" Ahern.
"He's the butt of the jokes. He's taken it too far."
The problem was not just about Saddam Hussein but the ascendancy of power in Europe, Mr Bush told him, and France had led Saddam Hussein to think he could get away with defying the UN.
Mr Ahern's response is not recorded.