The White House yesterday asked conservatives to tone down their criticism of the President over the spy plane crisis.
President Bush's spokesman, Mr Ari Fleischer, said Mr Bush believes progress is being made. "It remains a delicate balance," Mr Fleischer said. "The President will continue to pursue the diplomatic openings that have been made . . . Nobody should be ratcheting up the rhetoric. The President setting the tone of patience and a thoughtful approach."
Unofficial Pentagon sources have quoted the detained pilot as claiming the US plane was on auto-pilot when it collided with the Chinese fighter.
US sources said the administration was working on its fourth draft of a possible common letter with the Chinese explaining the mid-air collision between the Chinese fighter and the US surveillance plane.
According to unofficial Pentagon sources, crew members have also shed more light on how the crash happened. They quoted a State Department cable reporting the pilot as claiming the four-engine aircraft was on auto-pilot at the time of the collision and that the Chinese plane was on its third close pass of the US craft when they collided. In previous passes the fighter had been as close as three to five feet from the American aircraft.
Following the collision, they said, the plane's auto-pilot had been knocked off and the plane had veered and then began to lose height fast.
But a spokesman for the Defence Department, Rear Admiral Craig Quigley, warned against taking such claims as a full explanation for what happened.
It would only be possible to get a "holistic" picture of the crash when the crew could be properly and systematically debriefed, he said.
Meanwhile, the Administration has received offers of mediation assistance from both the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, and the Rev Jesse Jack son.
The White House expressed its gratitude to Mr Jackson but said it was pursuing the matter by means of traditional diplomatic channels.
Meanwhile, China has insisted again that a full apology was necessary. A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Beijing has called on the US not to complicate the dispute by calling the 24 detained crew "hostages" or by threatening trade relations.
The "unnecessary" linking of the mid-air collision with other issues would further complicate the situation, the spokesman said, hours before US diplomats had a fifth meeting with the air crew, who are being detained on Hainan Island.
The spokesman said Mr Powell's use of the word "sorry" when referring to the death of a Chinese fighter pilot as a result of the collision was a step towards resolving the standoff. But he repeated that Washington must apologise for the incident.
"Since the US side has done something wrong first, it is purely their responsibility to apologise," he told a news conference.
The US crew was exercising and getting regular news reports and e-mails from home, the US defence attache, Mr Neal Sealock, said after meeting them for the fifth time last night.