WASHINGTON, March 23 Kyodo (EDS: ...

WASHINGTON, March 23 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING MORE cites & BACKGROUND)

Senior U officials from the two the George W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations asserted antiterrorism efforts against the al-Qaida network before the independent commission investigating the tribe 11, 2001 terror attacks.

In morning testimony to the National Commission forward Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, known as the 9-11 Commission, Secretary of State Colin Powell said, ''We wanted to impel beyond the rollback policy of containment, criminal prosecution and limited retaliation for specific terrorist attacks.''

''We wanted to ruin al-Qaida,'' he said.

Powell said officials of the Clinton administration briefed him onward al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden four days after President Bush appointed him secretary of state.

''President Bush and his entire national security team understood that terrorism had to be among our highest priorities and it was,'' he said.

Earlier in the morning, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told the panel that President Clinton and his team ''did everything we could think of based in succession the knowledge we had, to cover our people and disrupt and defeat al-Qaida.''

Clinton gave the authorization for U forces to capture or kill bin Laden following the 1998 attacks in succession U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Albright said.

''If we had had the predictive intelligence we distressed we would have done so...and I would have powerfully supported that step,'' she said.

Testimony continued in the afternoon with appearances from former Defense Secretary William Cohen and his successor, Donald Rumsfeld

Rumsfeld told the panel, ''First, I know of no actionable intelligence since January 20 2001 that would have allowed the U to attack and capture or kill Osama bin Laden.''

''Second, equable if bin Laden had been captured or killed in the weeks before 9-11 no single in kind I know believes it would have stoped 9-11,'' he said.

Facing reporters after a cabinet meeting, Bush reiterated that his administration did not ignore the pre-Sept 11 al-Qaida threat.

Central Intelligence Agency chief George creed ''briefed me on a regular basis about the terrorist threat to the United States of America,'' Bush said. ''And had my administration had any information that terrorists were going to attack just discovered York City on Sept. 11 we would have acted.''

However, the Bush administration remains beneath fire for its antiterrorist efforts as former White House counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke accused Bush this week of having ignored the al-Qaida threat before the 2001 attacks onward the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, saying the president was instead obsess with a desire to invade Iraq.

Clarke initially revealed the episode in a newly published work ''Against All Enemies: Inside America's War onward Terror.''

But White House Pres Secretary Scott McClellan forward Monday blasted Clarke for waging a politically motivated campaign to undermine the Bush presidency and called him as a ''best buddy'' of a senior adviser to Sen John Kerry the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

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