There came a point as I walked into the stark reception area of the US Embassy in Floriana - the décor is more suited to a village police station than a representative office of the world's only superpower - when I genuinely feared this interview was not going to happen; and my thoughts were forced to turn to the delicate matter of how I was going to explain this one to my editor.

The newspaper needed an interview for Saturday, and it was Wednesday afternoon. Going back empty handed would put him in a smelly creek without a paddle. I was pretty sure that in this day and age of terror - to borrow George W. Bush's favourite word - the editor would understand if an appointment with the US ambassador was called off at short notice because of a security issue. The slippery predicament was telling him that issue was connected with me.

As my recorder emerged from one of my turned-out pockets, a surly security official barked: "No electronic equipment," and throughout gentle protestations - the only explosive thing of interest to me was a comment, and even the possibility of that is remote in an encounter with a diplomat - she remained unmoved. Until I said that in such circumstances there could be no interview. A flurry of phone calls followed, ID cards were produced, mobiles were turned off and deposited, keys were taken, and I went through two scanning machines, one downstairs and one on the third floor, despite being accompanied by another security official in the lift between.

I had not even been subjected to this when covering the Prime Minister's meeting with Mr Bush at the White House last year. However, it reinforces how sensitive Americans abroad have become. They have some reason to be jittery. By the beginning of last month, according to CNN, more of its countrymen had died in Iraq, 2,974, than were killed by the September 11 bombers, 2,973, five years ago. In the meantime not one life has been lost to a terrorist attack on US soil. But if anyone was getting complacent, revelations last July of an advanced plot to explode up to 10 aircraft bound for the US from UK airports quickly brought harrowing memories flooding back.

If Molly Bordonaro is nervous, she certainly doesn't show it. The US Ambassador to Malta, who took up her appointment last year, is affable, elegant and well informed. But at the same time she is business-like and strongly rebuts the suggestion that Mr Bush's policies are fanning the terror fire rather than extinguishing it. "The only long-term solution to stopping this ideology of hate is to give hope and opportunity to as many people as possible. Economic progress cannot be made unless there is political reform and stability and people have freedom and control over their own destinies. And since September 11 great progress has been made towards freedom and democracy whether it is in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, which have had free elections, or a country like Kuwait which has actually allowed women to vote and run for office for the first time."

Ms Bordonaro also refutes that the continuing haemorrhage in terms of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the fact that Osama Bin Laden is still a free man are signs that Mr Bush's so-called war on terror has failed. "The senior Al Qaeda leadership and Al Qaeda as an organisation has completely been disrupted. Their financial ability to finance activity has been absolutely disrupted, their ability to communicate has been disrupted."

Nor does she accept the suggestion that the UK airport bomb threat showed that they were still very well organised. "That was a great success story in terms of showing it's very difficult to carry out this type of operation because of the multiple areas: breaking down communications, sharing of intelligence, monitoring the financing, all of which contributed to foiling that plot and getting to the top Al Qaeda leadership who have either been arrested or killed. So there has been success."

However, she will make key admissions that perhaps would not have emanated from official American lips 12 months ago: Ms Bordonaro says that mistakes have been made, "there is no doubt about that", that the insurgency has been much stronger than the US expected, "it's much stronger than the world expected", and that her country folk at home are questioning whether their troops should stay, "there is definitely a debate going on in terms of the cost to American taxpayers and being able to see the day-to-day violence, which is extremely troubling".

But she adopts Mr Bush's political stance on the latter point: "There is a commitment on the part of the American leadership to absolutely stay the course. The only other choice - to leave - would leave the Iraqi people in a desperate situation after tremendous progress has been made... Staying the course is (also) imperative in terms of ultimately succeeding both in providing the human right of freedom and democracy and in preventing the spread of this ideology of hate and terrorist activity."

She refutes that Iraq can be compared to Vietnam, "because there has been tremendous progress that prevents any kind of parallel comparison", or that it will necessarily cost the Republican Party control of Congress in next month's important mid-term elections. "As with every election multiple factors come into play. Iraq is certainly one determination but with every election of Congress members there are local issues that (also) play a part."

If the Republicans do lose, Mr Bush will become what the American's call a lame duck since his power is likely to be more limited in his last two years in office if the opposing party, the Democrats, gain control of Congress. Will this make pursuing his policy in Iraq and the Middle East more difficult? "I've never liked the term lame duck because the President of the US is still the President of the US and I think that President Bush, especially with his leadership and commitment to many of these foreign policy decisions and issues, is going to continue to pursue them."

Whatever the outcome, Ms Bordonaro's role in Malta will remain unchanged: "To explain American policy decisions, especially foreign policy decisions, so that Maltese... have the information to make accurate decisions." She sighs hard, however, when asked which side of the Middle East fence the Maltese are sitting on. "The government of Malta is working very hard to be an unbiased supporter of the Middle East peace process," is her diplomatic reply.

But there is an important business aspect to being a US ambassador these days, as they cast an eye to the north African market. American firms employ almost 3,000 people in Malta - that is one in 50 workers - because, the ambassador says, of the highly educated, English-speaking workforce. One IT company, Atlas TG, recently announced plans to employ 600 people in five years, and another IT company is on the way, according to Ms Bordonaro. "There's a firm that in the coming weeks will announce that it's moving from a northern EU country and the reasons it cited were SmartCity, the workforce, and specific interest in the Mid-East and northern Africa marketplaces." But she will not say who it is for the time being.

Yet despite her comments that the economic partnership is "already extremely strong", the double taxation agreement discussed between Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Mr Bush last year has still not been concluded.

"We don't have a double taxation agreement, but the decision was made to go forward. That was a major advancement. A team went over last June to meet with the Treasury Department to begin discussions.

"Since then discussions have been going back and forth on specific details that need to be reached and then hopefully formal negotiations will commence." However, even though there are no sticking points as such, she says it is not possible to put a timeline as to how long the discussion will take.

Another topic discussed in Washington, a visa waiver for Maltese citizens who wish to enter, is considerably further from realisation. In the post-September 11 environment the US legislature just does not want any more nationalities to walk onto their soil without a visa. "This is not Malta-specific and I want to stress this," the ambassador says, when it is pointed out that a number of EU states (14 out of the 15 pre-enlargement members) benefit from a waiver. "We at the embassy have been working very closely with the government of Malta on providing them with a visa waiver roadmap - even if the political decision is taken there are certain requirements that need to be met. Malta is doing extremely well in terms of the requirements and is one of the better positioned EU countries if a decision is made to open up visa waiver."

But even though the visa refusal rate for Malta is going down, a key requirement of the roadmap, it does not seem that anything will happen any time soon in spite of security cooperation between the two countries improving all the time, such as the presence of US screening equipment at the Freeport. "Malta was one of the first countries to forgive Iraq's debt... also Malta has worked with us on sharing of information... and Malta works with the EU on its multilateral relationship with the US... We count Malta as a partner."

Ms Bordonaro plays down the recent claim in a book by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf that terrorists were planning to use an aircraft from Malta in 2002, saying she "can't even confirm whether or not it was a credible threat", but, she says, returning to Mr Bush's mantra, no one or no country is secure in today's world.

Not even from journalists, it seems.