US 'at risk of worse attack'

A very real threat exists of a terrorist attack even more devastating than the one on the World Trade Center, US vice-president Dick Cheney has warned.

He was speaking as President Bush's closest aides attempted to defuse a growing row over how much the White House knew about the threat of an attack by Osama bin Laden before 11 September.

With Congress demanding answers to reports that Mr Bush knew the United States could be the target of a terrorist attack that might include an aircraft hijacking, National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice admitted the situation: "Looks horrible".

Ms Rice, the most powerful woman in American politics, attempted to justify a decision by the White House to hush up news of a possible attack by Bin Laden, saying: "There was no time. There was no place. There was no method of attack."

Officials feared going public would "have risked shutting down the American civil aviation system", she said. In fact, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon forced the suspension of all flights inside America and f rom overseas for nearly a week, pushing many airlines close to bankruptcy.

It emerged yesterday that Mr Bush was briefed by his security experts about the threat of a hijacking by followers of al Qaeda on 6 August - barely a month before Arab terrorists seized five aircraft at Boston and Washington airports.

The briefing is known to have focused on a possible attempt to free convicted terrorists held in US prisons using "hijacking in a traditional sense''.

But the White House also took precautions to protect senior members of the Bush cabinet.

Attorney General John Ashcroft began using a leased private jet instead of commercial airlines from the end of July, a decision which at the time was described as the result of a "threat assessment" by the FBI.

The Nasa-owned Gulfstream jet cost the government more than £700 an hour to fly, with Mr Ashcroft insisting at the time that he had not been told the nature of the threat against him.

US embassies and military bases worldwide were also put on alert, with the FBI and other domestic law enforcement agencies also briefed about the danger of a terrorist attack

In another damage limitation exercise, Mr Cheney yesterday called the handling of the terror warnings by the White House " thoroughly responsible''.

He also warned that any attempt by Congress to probe too deeply into intelligence reports should not interfere with attempts to prevent further attacks, saying there was " a very real threat" that "perhaps a more devastating attack still exists''.

Mr Cheney also said criticism of the White House's handling of the warnings was " thoroughly irresponsible and totally unworthy of national leaders in a time of war''.

Senior members of Congress yesterday demanded to know if Mr Bush had been given enough information to foil the 11 September attacks, which killed more than 3,000 people. At the time, Mr Bush called the suicide hijackings a "sneak attack''.

Senate majority leader Tom Daschle said he was "gravely concerned" at the reports.

Congress is considering appointing an independent commission to look into what the White House knew and a possible failure of intelligence agencies, including the CIA and FBI, to act.