US Vice President Dick Cheney has said that accusations the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to justify the war were a "dishonest and reprehensible" political ploy.
In the sharpest White House attack yet on critics of the Iraq war, Mr Cheney called Democrats "opportunists" who were peddling "cynical and pernicious falsehoods" to gain political advantage while US soldiers died in Iraq.
Democrats criticised the comments, but President Bush, who is in South Korea, defended Mr Cheney . He said it was "patriotic as heck" to disagree with him but that Democrats were irresponsible for accusing him of misleading Americans about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
"What bothers me is when people are irresponsibly using their positions and playing politics. That's exactly what is taking place in America," he said.
Mr Cheney repeated Bush's charge that Democratic critics were rewriting history by questioning prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction even though many Senate Democrats voted in October 2002 to authorise the invasion.
His comments were the latest salvo in an aggressive White House counterattack on war critics, which come as Democrats step up their criticism of the war and polls show declining public support for the conflict.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada responded that "tired rhetoric and political attacks do nothing to get the job done in Iraq."
Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry accused Cheney of engaging "in the politics of fear and smear. . . . It is hard to name a government official with less credibility on Iraq than Vice President Cheney."