Charges from former White House press secretary Scott McClellan that the Bush White House manipulated sources of public opinion to the president's advantage have drawn quick reaction from those who know and once worked with him.

Fran Townsend, former head of the White House-based counterterrorism office, told CNN that the McClellan memoir is "self-serving, disingenuous and unprofessional."

The Bush White House made "a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed" -- a time when the nation was on the brink of war, McClellan writes in the book entitled "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception."

The way Bush managed the Iraq issue "almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option," McClellan writes. "In the permanent campaign era, it was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president's advantage."

McClellan's predecessor, Ari Fleischer, told CNN that there is "something about this book that just doesn't make any sense."

"For 2 1/2 years, Scott and I worked shoulder to shoulder at the White House. Scott was my always-reliable , solid deputy," Fleischer told CNN. "Not once did Scott approach me -- privately or publicly -- to discuss any misgivings he had about the war in Iraq or the manner in which the White House made the case for war."

McClellan was the second of four press secretaries so far in Bush's presidency. He said that some of his own words from the podium in the White House briefing room turned out to be "badly misguided." But he said he was sincere at the time.

"When words I uttered, believing them to be true, were exposed as false, I was constrained by my duties and loyalty to the president and unable to comment," he said. "But I promised reporters and the public that I would someday tell the whole story of what I knew."

McClellan explains his dramatic shift from defender to critic as a difficult act of personal contrition, a way, to learn from his mistakes, be true to his Christian faith and become a better person. He said he started the book to explain his role in the CIA leak case, in which some of his own words turned out to be what he called "badly misguided," though sincere at the time.

In a separate interview with Fox News Channel, former top aide Karl Rove said that if McClellan had moral qualms about the need for the war in Iraq, "he should have spoken up about them." He says he doesn't remember hearing anything from McClellan -- not "a single word."

Aboard Air Force One on the way to Salt Lake City on Wednesday, White House press secretary Dana Perino called the book "a sad situation."

"The president has been aware that it was going to come out," she told reporters. "His reaction was similar to what I said this morning, which is he is puzzled, and he doesn't recognize this as the Scott McClellan that he hired and confided in and worked with for so many years; and disappointed that if he had these concerns and these thoughts he never came to him or anyone else on the staff that we know of."

When asked if the White House was concerned that the book's contents might undermine the public's confidence in the White House or in the mission in Iraq, Perino said, "I don't."

"People can argue back and forth as much as they want about the ultimate decision to go to war. I think that the questions about the intelligence being wrong have been answered by the White House. The intelligence was wrong, and we have taken measures to make sure that intelligence failures like that don't happen again," she said. "And one of the ways we've done that is by modernizing and improving coordination amongst the intelligence agencies. And by any measure, that coordination is better than it's ever been in the United States. That doesn't mean there was anyone purposefully misled."

Former counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke, who also came out with a book critical of administration policy, said he could understand McClellan's thinking. He said he, too, was harshly criticized, adding, "I can show you the tire tracks."

He told CNN, "I think the difference with McClellan's book is, he's now telling us something we all know, that the war with Iraq was a disastrous war (and that it was) sold with deception. It's a little different when you say something as I did and a few other people did four or five years ago, when the war was popular and when we were unpopular for saying what we said."

In the book McClellan writes, "I still like and admire President Bush...but he and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war ... In this regard, (Bush) was terribly ill-served by his top advisers, especially those involved directly in national security."

The book is to be released on June 2.