Bush watches Rita batter Texas and Louisiana

Stung by the widespread belief he was slow and ineffective in response to killer Hurricane Katrina, Bush took in a military briefing on Rita here before travelling to his adoptive home state of Texas to visit emergency officials.

The president listened as officers detailed flooding and rainfall predictions as well as forecasts of Rita's trajectory and military response efforts. He made no public remarks.

Bush was at the Colorado Springs headquarters of the Pentagon's Northern Command, which was created after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to guard the US territory.

The president was to travel to Texas to pay a visit to a state emergency operations centre in Austin and then head to San Antonio where he was to spend the night. The White House refused to say when he would return to Washington.

Bush, criticized after Katrina for not being quicker to cut short his August vacation on his Texas ranch, was not expected to stop at the property, which lies some 300 miles (480 km) from the stretch of Texas-Lousiana coastline where Rita made landfall.