GEORGE BUSH loves his Prarie Chapel Ranch in Crawford so much that he has spent almost one fifth of his presidency “taking the pulse of the heartlands” in this big-buckled, open — if not red — necked, beef-eating corner of Texas.

He knows this enthusiasm is not shared by everyone but apparently delights in forcing aides, journalists and, yesterday, even Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld, to do a stint of ranch duty. “I just checked in with the house, its about 100 degrees,” he told reporters with some relish on Monday.

Crawford would not even rate as a last resort for a summer holiday unless you happen to be President of the United States — or Cindy Sheehan.

She is one of America’s “Gold Star moms” after her 24-year-old son, Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed in an ambush at Sadr City, Iraq, last year.

Ms Sheehan says that it was last weekend when she “spontaneously” decided to march up to the President’s gate for some answers. “I want to know what is this noble cause he says my son died for and why he doesn’t send his own daughters out there to fight for it.”

The President dispatched Stephen Hadley, his National Security Adviser, and Joe Hagin, a White House Deputy Chief of Staff, for a 45-minute chat with her.

But Ms Sheehan, 48, from Vacaville, California, refuses to be fobbed off. She has been camping on a patch of grass about a mile from the ranch, where she intends to stay until Mr Bush heads back to Washington at the end of this month or consents to talk with her.

“Camp Casey”, as she calls it, has grown to about 50 people, including other bereaved military families, and there are predictions that numbers will swell to 1,000 this weekend.

It is a ramshackle place of temporary shelters, home-made banners and the tie-dyed peace art familiar to anyone who remembers the protests at Greenham Common in Berkshire in the 1980s. Like Greenham, Camp Casey is already under pressure from the authorities who have placed “no trespassing” signs around it, as well as some local people who have driven over to yell abuse.

In the local paper, the McGregor Mirror, there is an open letter to “the woman complaining about her son’s death in Iraq” from Ann Lehman, a Crawford resident.

“You dishonour the President, yourself and God when you deny your son the freedom in death that he had in life to choose. He knew the risk when he joined the military, just as President Bush knows the risk for his life every day!” she said.

But Ms Sheenan is more than just a blot on the President’s landscape: she is fast becoming this summer’s media phenomenon. When she spoke to The Times, she did so with the ease of a woman who has conducted more than 100 interviews since the weekend.

“We need to get our troops out of Iraq. The only reason Bush wants to stay there is because his buddies are getting rich and feasting off the blood of our children.” She also wants a complete military withdrawal from all Arab countries to make us safe from terrorism.

Is not ridding the world of Saddam Hussein a noble cause? “We sold him weapons and were once his friend — we made him,” she said.

“I have to wonder for the rest of my life if the gun which took Casey’s life was sold to Saddam by the US or by Britain.” Ms Sheenan has separated from her husband, Patrick, since Casey’s death because he does not agree with the “level of intensity” she has devoted to peace in the past year. She has had to dissuade her younger son, Andy, from joining the Army. “I said there was no way this Government was going to get another of my children.”

It is hard for the President to attack a bereaved parent but right-wing websites have been doing their best to discredit Ms Sheenan, pointing out that she has already met the President, two months after her son’s death. Back then, according to a report in her local paper, she said, “I now know he’s sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis” before suggesting that Mr Bush had given her back the “gift of happiness ”.

Ms Sheenan says that she was confused by grief at the time and now gives a very different account of her meeting with the President, saying that he acted as if he was hosting a party and clearly did not know her son’s name. She knows that her protest is distracting attention from Mr Bush’s attempts to portray his five-week Crawford vacation as a wholesome exercise in clearing brushwood and finding out what i s on the minds of ordinary folk.

The focus on Ms Sheenan chimes with the sense that support is slipping away from Mr Bush as the death-toll for US troops exceeds 1,840. An opinion poll published yesterday showed that only 38 per cent of American voters approve of Mr Bush’s handling of Iraq.

Speaking after his meeting yesterday, Mr Bush said: “I sympathise with Mrs Sheehan. She feels strongly about her position and she has every right in the world to say what she believes. This is America.”

He said that he understood the “anguish” of families who had lost loved ones but he insisted that those calling for all American troops to be pulled out of Iraq were wrong, because it “would send a terrible signal to the enemy”.

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