President Bush came under attack from Iraq's Olympic football coach today for a campaign ad claiming credit for ensuring that a free Iraq is competing at the Athens Games.

The advert, entitled Victory, begins with footage from the 1972 Munich Olympics, during which 13 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian terrorists.

"In 1972 there were 40 democracies in the world. Today: 120," a narrator declares. "Freedom is spreading throughout the world like a sunrise,"

Then as the flags of Afghanistan and Iraq are shown fluttering in the wind, the narrator adds: "At this Olympics there will be two more free nations and two fewer terrorist regimes."

But Adnan Hamad, the Iraqi coach, dismissed the advert's claim, saying that Iraq remained a country under occupation.

"You cannot speak about a team that represents freedom. We do not have freedom in Iraq, we have an occupying force. This is one of our most miserable times," Mr Hamad said.

"Freedom is just a word for the media. We are living in hard times, under occupation."

The Iraqi football team has been one of the surprises of the Olympics, reaching the semi-finals of the competition. They play Paraguay tomorrow for a place in Saturday's final against either Argentina or Italy.

The Bush advert has been broadcast in the United States for a week, during which time Mr Bush has made repeated reference on campaign stops to the success of the Iraqi team.

Iraq has won only one Olympic medal, a weightlifting bronze in 1960. It did not even compete at the last two summer Olympics and its national committee was thrown out of the Olympic movement last year after stories of brutality on the part of its chief, Saddam Hussein's son Uday.

Despite the official handover of political power to an interim government, some 130,000 American troops remain in Iraq, trying to battle insurgents from a variety of factions.

Hamad told reporters in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki, where tomorrow's semi-final takes place, that his players just wanted to give Iraqis something to celebrate. But with violence still wracking their country, they could not fully enjoy their success in Greece.

"To be honest with you, even our happiness at winning is not happiness because we are worried about the problems in Iraq, all the daily problems that our people face back home, so to tell you the truth, we are not really happy," he said.

The Bush campaign has also been accused of illegal use of Olympic symbols in the ads. Only the US Olympic Committee (Usoc), or its sponsors and partners, are allowed to use the symbols in adverts under American copyright law.

A Usoc spokesman said the organisation had asked for a copy of the Bush advert.