WASHINGTON, May 28: President Bush’s former press secretary Scott McClellan has said that his former boss and senior White House staffers repeatedly “shaded the truth” to justify invading Iraq in 2003.

The comments, appearing in Mr McClellan’s memoirs, stunned the White House aides some of whom described his book as “self-serving, disingenuous, unprofessional, and heartbreaking.”

Mr McClellan, who served as Mr Bush’s press secretary from July 2003 to April 2006, touches on a number of White House topics and personalities.

He writes that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated “political propaganda campaign” led by Mr Bush and aimed at “manipulating sources of public opinion” and “downplaying the major reason for going to war.”

Regarding Mr Bush, he writes that the president “convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment,” and has engaged in “self-deception” to justify his political ends.

In a chapter titled “Selling the War,” Mr McClellan alleges that the Bush administration repeatedly shaded the truth and that Bush “managed the crisis in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option.”

“Over that summer of 2002,” he writes, “top Bush aides had outlined a strategy for carefully orchestrating the coming campaign to aggressively sell the war. In the permanent campaign era, it was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president’s advantage.”

Mr McClellan, once a staunch defender of the war, comes to a stark conclusion, writing, “What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary.”

Mr McClellan describes Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as being deft at deflecting blame, and he calls Vice President Dick Cheney “the magic man” who steered policy behind the scenes while leaving no finger prints.

Although excerpts from the book had started appearing in the US media by Tuesday evening, the White House was still in a shock almost 24 hours after the excerpts were made public.

“Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House,” said White House press secretary Dana Perino. “For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad — this is not the Scott we knew.”

Former Bush political strategist Karl Rove, who was singled out for particularly strong criticism, said the book excerpts are “not the Scott McClellan I’ve known for a long time.”

“It sounds like a left-winger blogger,” he said on Fox News’ Hannity and Colmes programme.

Frances Fragos Townsend, a former Bush administration official, told CNN that Mr McClellan’s claims are “self-serving, disingenuous and unprofessional.”

“People need to understand that as an adviser to the president, I or Scott have an obligation, a responsibility, to voice concerns on policy issues,” she said. “Scott never did that on any of these issues, as best I can remember, and as best I know from my White House colleagues.”

Ari Fleischer, Mr McClellan’s immediate predecessor as press secretary, told Fox News the book is “heartbreaking” and that he was confused by it. “Well there’s just something about it that doesn’t make any sense.”