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— -- White House Defends Pre-Sept. 11 Terror Review

W A S H I N G T O N, Aug. 5 — Bush administration officials say they movedas quickly as possible to assemble a plan for eliminating theal Qaeda terror network, defending a review that took eight monthsand was completed only a week before the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Clinton administration had handed off to the incoming Bushteam detailed assessments of the threat, and offered ideas on howto counter al Qaeda.

But aides to President Bush took issue Sunday with a report inthis week's Time magazine that the current administration's reviewof its predecessor's briefings became bogged down in bureaucracy.

The Bush White House denied receiving any firm plans for dealingwith al Qaeda, which has been tied to the attacks on the WorldTrade Center in New York and the Pentagon.

The Clinton administration did not present an aggressive newplan to topple al Qaeda during the transition, said White Housespokesman Sean McCormack.

"We were briefed on the al Qaeda threat and what the Clintonadministration was doing about it," he said. "These effortsagainst al Qaeda were continued in the Bush administration."

According to Time, Clinton's anti-terror czar, Richard Clarke,offered detailed proposals: arresting al Qaeda personnel, chokingoff the group's financing, aiding nations fighting the organizationand increasing covert action in Afghanistan to deny al Qaedasanctuary.

Clarke, who stayed on in the Bush administration, also calledfor a substantial increase in support for the anti-NorthernAlliance in Afghanistan and for planning of airstrikes on Afghanterror camps.

But a senior Bush administration official said Sunday theClinton White House offered the incoming Bush team only ideas onhow to "roll back" the threat over a three- to five-year period.

Soon after it began studying the issue, the new administrationdecided a rollback was inadequate, and began planning foreliminating al Qaeda entirely, said the official, speaking oncondition of anonymity.

Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, attended ameeting during the transition at which the Clinton and Bush teamsdiscussed counterterrorism issues.

Berger did not return calls to his office on Sunday.

A few days after Bush took office in January 2001, NationalSecurity Adviser Condoleezza Rice asked for proposals for majorpresidential policy review and, based on a response from Clark,ordered a review of policy toward al Qaeda, the senior officialsaid.

Top administration officials approved the "comprehensivestrategy to eliminate al Qaeda" exactly one week before the Sept.11 attacks, McCormack said.

Questions about the administration's planning against al Qaedacome on top of disclosures that U.S. intelligence officialsintercepted communications in Arabic that made vague references toan impending attack on the United States. They contained thephrases, "Tomorrow is zero hour" and "The match is about tobegin."

The intercepts weren't translated until Sept. 12. Theirrelevance is uncertain.

— The Associated Press

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