Bush draws the ire of the Iraqi football team

Unexpected but true. The Iraqi football team at Athens has criticised heavily George Bush's move to use the team in his political advertisements. Bush's campaign adverts show pictures of the Afghan and Iraqi flags with the words: "At this Olympics there will be two more free nations - and two fewer terrorist regimes".

The team hasn't taken this too well. "Iraq as a team does not want Mr Bush to use us for the presidential campaign," said Salih Sadir, an Iraqi midfielder. "He can find another way to advertise himself," he added. Others labelled Bush as a "war criminal" and have said that if they were not playing football at Athens, they would be fighting the American forces in Iraq. However, they did express their relief that they were no longer under Uday Hussein, who was known for torturing players if they failed to do well.

The US administration has defended its actions. "The ad simply talks about President Bush's optimism and how democracy has triumphed over terror. Twenty-five million people in Iraq are free as a result of the actions of the coalition," said a spokesperson.