9/11 evidence rocks Bush

White House officials are struggling to limit the damage caused by a former anti-terror chief after fresh claims that President Bush ignored the threat from al Qaeda.

Giving evidence before an independent inquiry in Washington into the attacks of September 11, Richard Clarke repeated allegations that Mr Bush had "greatly undermined the war on terrorism".

In devastating testimony that could threaten Mr Bush's prospects of reelection in November, Mr Clarke insisted that the president was told "dozens of times" of the threat posed by Osama bin Laden well before the destruction of the World Trade Center-He claimed that the Bush administration had failed to take al Qaeda as seriously as President Clinton, adding the new Republican White House considered terrorism "an important issue, but not an urgent issue". In a book published this week, Mr Clarke, who resigned last year as head of counter-terrorism, has also claimed Mr Bush at first placed the blame for the September 11 attacks on Saddam Hussein and ordered him to find evidence.

After beginning his testimony with an apology to the relatives of those killed in the attacks, Mr Clarke told them: "Your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you."

His criticism also included the FBI, who he said knew that two of the hijackers with links to Bin Laden had arrived in the US but failed to put them on its "most wanted" list or circulate an appeal for their arrest.

He also singled out White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, saying she had never heard of al Qaeda and had slowed down the flow of intelligence information that might have stopped the

attacks. Mr Clarke said that a week before September 11 he had written to Miss Rice saying the White House should "imagine a day after a terrorist attack, with hundreds of Americans dead at home or abroad, and ask themselves what could be done".

A furious Rice later hit back, calling the allegations "scurrilous" and saying Clarke had produced several versions of events. "This story has so many twists and turns, he needs to get his story straight," she said.

After refusing to give evidence to the hearings, she now faces growing pressure to explain her conduct in public. In a further attempt to discredit Mr Clarke, White House officials also revealed that he had praised Mr Bush for his prompt reaction to the threat from terrorism in a background briefing for reporters two years ago.

White House officials and the Republican leadership are increasingly concerned that an issue they believed was one of the planks of Mr Bush's campaign is turning into a liability.

They are hinting that Mr Clarke is making his sensational claims to boost sales of his book and is also hoping for a top job under Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry if he wins the election.

Earlier CIA director George Tenet told the inquiry that the agency knew well before September 11 that al Qaeda posed a serious threat to the United States but had problems in tracking down Bin Laden.

He said that in the weeks before the attacks warnings had "lit up" indicating that " spectacular attacks were planned and that some of the plots were in their final stages."

The CIA boss added: "The reporting was maddeningly short on actionable details. The most ominous reporting, hinting at ' something big', was also the most vague."