“The investigators determined that the pilots followed the procedures and processes for engaging targets,” US Defence Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

But US officials have refused British requests to send the pilots to travel to Britain to testify inthe inquest. Hull’s widow said she was glad the video was now public.

“I would have preferred to hear the evidence from the US pilots themselves. However, they cannot be compelled to come and they have not come voluntarily. The video is therefore vital evidence and must be shown,” Susan Hull said in a statement. “After years of being told that it did not exist or was secret I feel that it was right not to give up hope.”

Friendly fire has been a burning issue for both countries since the first Gulf War in 1991, when nine British servicemen were killed in a mistaken attack by US aircraft.

Precautions have since been taken – orange panels were fitted to allied vehicles to alert pilots during the 2003 invasion. The pilots on the tape can be heard concluding the panels were “orange rocket launchers” before opening fire.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said reports of the transcripts of the incident showed a “clear expression of remorse” from those involved. “These people immediately understood that this just was a terrible, terrible mistake and that they felt an immediate remorse for what happened,” McCormack told reporters.

HEALTH CARE VERSUS WAR

<B>Democrats critical of Bush’s budget plan</B>

■ Administration officials dispatched to Capitol Hill to defend President Bush’s budget received a frosty reception from congressional Democrats, who argued that the president’s proposal to target health care, education and other Democratic priorities suggests a White House more interested in scoring political points than in genuine compromise.

The $2.9 trillion budget blueprint contains little to appeal to, but much to infuriate, the Democratic majority, Democrats said. In a series of hearings, they rattled off a list of their objections: More than $100 billion to be sliced from projected Medicare and Medicaid spending. Further restrictions on the federal food-stamp program. Insufficient cash to maintain health coverage for millions of children. And deep cuts proposed for a range of programs that help communities put police on the street and fund community projects.

When you combine the cutbacks with the large sums the White House is seeking to support the military, the war and tax cuts, “this is not a budget we can support,” House Budget Committee Chairman John M. Spratt Jr. told reporters after his panel finished grilling White House budget director Rob Portman.

In the House Ways and Means Committee, Chairman Charles B. Rangel told Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson that he was particularly annoyed by the health-care cuts and yet another request from the White House to create private retirement accounts that would allow taxpayers to shift billions of dollars out of the Social Security trust fund.

The proposal went nowhere two years ago, when Republicans controlled Congress. Democrats have refused even to discuss changing Social Security unless Bush backs away from the plan. At a time when the president is trying to engage Democrats in a politically risky effort to restructure Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Rangel told Paulson, the budget represents a “missed opportunity.” “They’re playing politics at a time that I’m trying to be bipartisan,” Rangel said later. “I don’t think that I can tell the president what to put on the table and not to put on the table. But I can tell him: Don’t pick a . . . fight.” Paulson replied that “no one should be surprised that private accounts are in the budget,”because they represent the president’s preferred path for restructuring Social Security. But, he said, “everything is on the table” for discussion, and “the president has been very clear and very sincere” about that.