WASHINGTON - One year after he swept to reelection on his 'war on terror' leadership, President George W. Bush is increasingly isolated and bogged down politically over charges he misled the US into the Iraq war.

A sharp downturn in public confidence in Bush has his own Republican party uneasy 12 months before mid-term congressional elections, as Democrats accuse the administration of having manipulated intelligence to justify invading Iraq.

While Democrats are pressing Bush to set the date to start a gradual retreat from Iraq, even some Republicans are demanding Bush account for how the US got into the prolonged war.

In a sign of hemorrhaging congressional support for the US presence in Iraq, senators from both parties Tuesday backed a proposal that would require Bush to provide regular progress reports on the war.

Underscoring these challenges to the president is a weekly erosion of his popularity in public opinion polls.

The president hit a new low in a CNN/USA Today poll released Tuesday, with only 37 percent of the people expressing a favorable view of his leadership, and 60 percent unfavorable.

Similarly, the number of Americans who now regret going to war in Iraq has shot up to 60 percent. Only 38 percent consider the undertaking as "worth it".

The number of US soldiers killed in Iraq -- which reached 2,061 Tuesday, according to US figures -- weighs heavy on public opinion.

Even so, in speech after speech Bush has amplified his war rhetoric against the "evil" of "Islamic radicalism", "militant jihadism" and more recently "Islamo-fascism".

It is a war, Bush says, to defeat "the establishment ... of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom."

On Friday and again Monday, Bush counter-attacked, saying Democrats who accuse his administration of lying about the war were "deeply irresponsible" in wanting to "rewrite" the origins of the conflict.

Hoping to exacerbate differenced among Democrats, Bush said he respects those who opposed the war from the beginning, while he criticized those who first supported the invasion decision and only now demand an accounting, like Senator John Kerry, Bush's opponent in the last presidential race.

But opposition to the Iraq war is increasingly a popular political stance, pointed out Ronald Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times.

"A growing number of Democratic challengers in the 2006 elections are endorsing proposals to accelerate the end of America's involvement in the war," Brownstein said.

One of the most emblematic of this trend is former marine Paul Hackett, who fought in Iraq and now hopes to run for Senate in Ohio. Hackett is calling for the return of the troops.

The CNN/USA Today poll made clear the difficulties facing Republicans. Only 42 percent of respondents said they would vote for a Republican candidate in 2006, while 53 percent said they would favor Democrats.

Doubt about Bush's leadership has spread through core Republican voters. Among those normally inclined to vote Republican, only about one in five said they wanted a candidate who consistently agrees with Bush on key issues.

That sentiment was clear on Tuesday in the Senate voted to force Bush to make regular reports on Iraq. At first pushed by Democrats, the amendment ended up being sponsored ironically by two of Bush's most faithful supporters, senior Republican senators John Warner and Bill Frist.

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