NEW YORK - Former U.S. vice president Al Gore Thursday criticized U.S. policy in Iraq, as well as domestic affairs and accused the White House of "a systematic effort to manipulate facts in service to a totalistic ideology," AFP reported.

"The direction in which our nation is being led now is deeply troubling to me, not only in Iraq, but also here at home, on economic policy, social policy and environmental policy," Gore told a gathering at New York University sponsored by the left-of-center Internet-based political group MoveOn.org.

"The president seems to have been pursuing policies chosen well in advance of the facts that were designed to benefit friends and supporters, and has then used tactics that deprived the American people of any opportunity to effectively subject his arguments to the kind of informed scrutiny essential in our system of checks and balances," Gore said.

Gore squelched rumors of an impending White House bid Thursday, saying he plans to throw his support to one of the other Democrats vying to unseat U.S. President George W. Bush.

"I'm not going to join them, but later in the political cycle I will endorse one of them," said Gore.

Supporters have been urging Gore to make another run for the White House in the absence of a clear Democratic frontrunner in the early campaign season and the belief by some Democratic operatives that Bush, the Republican incumbent, is vulnerable.

Democrats point to the faltering U.S. economy, recent contretemps surrounding U.S. prewar intelligence on Iraq, rising numbers of U.S. troops killed there, and Bush's falling poll numbers as indicators that a prominent Democrat could mount a successful challenge against the U.S. president.

However, of the nine declared Democratic contenders, none has broken from the pack as yet to emerge as a clear frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.

Gore, the party's presidential candidate in the closely contested 2000 election, took himself out of the November 2004 presidential race last December, after months of indecision.