The Bush administration is going on the offensive to counter charges it could have done more to head off the Sept. 11 attacks, calling Democrats irresponsible for criticizing the president at wartime while pushing for limits on any congressional investigations.
US Vice President Dick Cheney led the charge, saying on Thursday that suggestions by some Democrats that the attacks could have been prevented were "thoroughly irresponsible and totally unworthy of national leaders in a time of war."
PHOTO: AP
Earlier, US President George W. Bush told Republicans in a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill that "there is a sniff of politics in the air" in the fact Democrats went on the attack.
At issue is the administration's admission that the president was given intelligence in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network might try to hijack US passenger planes.
The White House insists the information was too general to act upon, and that there was no intelligence to suggest that al-Qaeda planned to use airplanes as missiles as they did to attack the Pentagon and destroy the World Trade Center, killing more than 3,000 people.
"I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon," Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said.
But lawmakers say pressure is building for an independent commission to investigate what the government knew in advance of the attacks and whether there was a failure among various federal agencies to respond adequately.
"Was there a failure of intelligence? Did the right officials not act on the intelligence in the proper way? These are the things we need to find out," said US House of Representatives Democratic leader Richard Gephardt.
US Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said he was "gravely concerned."
"Why did it take eight months for us to receive this information? And secondly, what specific actions were taken by the White House in response?" asked Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat.
The White House has pledged to cooperate with any congressional investigations into the matter.
But Cheney warned lawmakers against going too far.
"An investigation must not interfere with the ongoing efforts to prevent the next attack, because without a doubt a very real threat of another perhaps more devastating attack still exists," Cheney said.
"The people and agencies responsible for helping us learn about and defeat such an attack are the very ones most likely to be distracted from their critical duties if Congress fails to carry out their obligations in a responsible fashion," he added.
In Budapest during a first European trip as President George W. Bush's representative, US first lady Laura Bush forcefully defended on Friday her husband's handling of "very general, unspecific" warnings before Sept. 11, saying there was nothing he could have done to stop the attacks.
She said, "Really, we need to put this in perspective. It's sad to play upon the emotions of people as if there were something we could have done to stop it, because that's just not the case."
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