WASHINGTON, May 28 (Xinhua) -- The White House said on Wednesday that it was "sad" about former spokesman Scott McClellan's disgruntle experience at the White House described in his new memoir.

    "Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House," the current White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters.

    "For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled," she said. "It is sad. This is not the Scott we knew."

    In excerpts of McClellan's 341-page new book, What Happened, that was set to be released on Monday, he accuses President George W. Bush's administration of being mired in propaganda and political spin, and misled the nation into an unnecessary war in Iraq.

    "History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided -- that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder," he wrote.

    The White House spokesman from June 2003 to April 2006 became the first Bush's longtime aide to put such harsh criticism in a book. Prior to the position, he worked as Bush's spokesman when the latter was Texas governor.

    He told a Tuesday TV interview that he retains great admiration and respect for Bush.

    "My job was to advocate and defend his policies and speak on his behalf," he said on the timing to release the new book. "This is an opportunity for me now to share my own views and perspective on things."

    McClellan's former White House colleagues voiced harsher reactions to his book.

    Frances Townsend, former Homeland Security adviser to Bush and now a CNN contributor, said on TV that advisers to the president should speak up when they have policy concerns.

    "Scott never did that on any of these issues as best I can remember or as best as I know from any of my White House colleagues," he said. "For him to do this now strikes me as self-serving, disingenuous and unprofessional."