UK Anti-terrorist Officials Alarmed at Us Tactics

Senior British officials responsible for countering al-Qaida terrorism are becoming increasingly concerned about the Bush administration's handling of the problem.

They say that imprecise or exaggerated warnings of attacks merely serve to encourage panic, and give gratuitous propaganda victories to the terrorists.

One official described a blanket warning by Dick Cheney, the American vice-president, last month about possible attacks on apartment blocks in the US as being so vague as to be meaningless. Another British official put it down to "back-covering".

There is also deep concern about the rhetoric employed by senior members of the Bush administration, including Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, and John Ashcroft, the attorney general - and even Mr Bush himself. Some suspects have been described as serious terrorists despite a lack of evidence against them, with remarks which would be prejudicial to a fair trial.

Mr Rumsfeld's description of prisoners at the US camp at Guantanamo Bay as some of the worst al-Qaida terrorists, and pictures of the inmates given out by the Pentagon, were described by Whitehall officials as "scandalous".

One official said: "American politicians are only concerned with American audiences." Another described the rhetoric, and the US refusal to acknowledge the Geneva convention, as "not benchmarks of a civilised society".

Security sources are also critical of the way the Bush adminstration handled the arrest of Jose Padilla, who according to US officials also uses the name Abdullah al-Muhajir.

He was described by Mr Ashcroft as a "known terrorist" preparing to detonate a "dirty bomb". There was briefly a suggestion from some, including Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary, that there had been an imminent danger to thousands.

British officials say US security and intelligence agents are too quick to believe those they interrogate. The authorities' attention appears to have been drawn to Muhajir in particular by Abu Zubaydah, a former associate of Osama bin Laden who is being held at a secret location in Pakistan.

Senior British officials also criticise the lack of evidence provided by the FBI in its attempt to extradite suspects from the UK.

If American claims made about Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian pilot, were true, one security source said, then he was "the most interesting person [wanted by the US in connection with the September 11 attacks] by far". In April, Mr Raissi was released by a British court which ruled that the charges against him were unsubstantiated.

One security source warned about the danger of suspects becoming "victims of a lynch mob" and said that it was "time for a good judiciary".

British officials also say the US is too quick to place blame elsewhere, for example over anthrax attacks which are now assumed to have originated in the US. "Dirty bombs" are considered more likely to be made with radioactive material stolen in the US than smuggled from abroad.