PRESIDENT Clinton, who avoided service in Vietnam, is seeking a delay in his sexual harassment lawsuit on the grounds that he is commander-in-chief of US forces and therefore covered by a soldier's legal immunity.

Veterans' groups are enraged by Mr Clinton's latest manoeuvre in seeking a postponement of the action brought by Paula Jones, a former clerk in the Arkansas government.

Members of Congress are circulating a petition demanding that Mr Clinton withdraws the legal motion and condemning him for dishonouring "all of America's veterans who did so proudly serve".

Miss Jones alleges that Mr Clinton dropped his trousers and asked her to perform a sexual act in a Little Rock hotel room in 1991 when he was governor of Arkansas.

She is seeking damages from Mr Clinton of almost £500,000 for the "intentional infliction of emotional distress". The White House is nervous about the political fall-out of an early trial and wants the case delayed until Mr Clinton leaves office. The President's lawyers have taken their argument all the way to the Supreme Court after a court in Little Rock ruled that the case should proceed immediately.

Mr Clinton is commander-in-chief only because America's Founding Fathers wanted military control to remain in civilian hands

The legal move has led to a furious row on Capitol Hill. Republicans drafted a letter of protest to Mr Clinton, demanding he withdraw the application and "rectify this ignoble suggestion that you are now somehow a person in military service".

Congressman Bob Stump, an Arizona Republican who saw action with the US Navy in the Pacific in the Second World War, said: "I got 70 signatures in just a few minutes this morning. It just infuriates me: here's a man who loathes the military, and now he's trying to hide behind it."

The letter, to be presented to Mr Clinton today, points out that the 1940 Act was a wartime measure designed to enable active servicemen "to devote their entire energy to the defence needs of the nation".

It says that Mr Clinton is commander-in-chief only because America's Founding Fathers wanted military control to remain in civilian hands. The letter adds the stinging rebuke: "You are not a person in military service, nor have you ever been."

Veterans' groups are just as angry as the Republicans on Capitol Hill. "Bill Clinton was not prepared to carry the sword for his country, but now has no hesitancy in using its shield if he can get away with it," said Thomas Burch of the National Vietnam Veterans Coalition.

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