Condoleezza Rice takes oath before testifying before the 9/11 commission on Capitol Hill, Washington DC. (Reuters)

Washington, April 8 (Reuters): National security adviser Condoleezza Rice told the September 11 commission today that four US Presidents including George W. Bush failed to respond adequately to terror threats, but there was no “silver bullet” that could have averted the deadly attacks on America.

In highly charged testimony that has taken on enormous political importance, Rice, under oath and before a live national television audience, clashed with Democratic members of the bipartisan commission over whether the Bush administration was negligent in the summer before the hijacked airliner attacks.

“The terrorists were at war with us, but we were not yet at war with them. For more than 20 years, the terrorist threat gathered, and America’s response across several administrations of both parties was insufficient,” Rice said.

“Tragically, for all the language of war spoken before September 11, this country simply was not on a war footing... There was no silver bullet that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks.”

“In hindsight, if anything might have helped stop 9/11, it would have been better information about threats inside the United States, something made difficult by structural and legal impediments that prevented the collection and sharing of information by our law enforcement and intelligence agencies. So the attacks came.”

Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democrat, was the first to take on Rice, focusing on a briefing given Bush on August 6, 2001, at which a document was presented entitled: “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.”

As members of the audience, including some family members of 9/11 victims applauded, Ben-Veniste demanded the report be declassified. Rice revealed the title but said it contained no specific threats. “It did not warn of attacks inside the US. It was historical information based on old reporting,” she said.

Minutes later, commissioner Bob Kerrey, a former US Democratic senator, revealed some of the still-classified memo. “This is what the August 6 memo said to the President — that the FBI indicates patterns of suspicious activity, and I’d say it’s consistent with preparations for hijacking. That’s the language of the memo that was briefed to the President on the 6th of August,” Kerrey said.

Rice’s testimony, watched by Bush at his central Texas ranch, came in the midst of a bitter presidential campaign and during some of the heaviest and most widespread fighting in Iraq since US forces occupied the country a year ago.

Bush had opposed creation of the commission and resisted calls for public testimony by Rice until public and political pressure grew too strong. Rice responded to damaging testimony by former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, who told the panel Bush ignored warnings about al Qaida before the attacks and focused mistakenly on Iraq afterward.

She sharply denied Clarke’s assertion that Bush pushed him to find an Iraqi connection to the September 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York and outside Washington. “I’m quite certain that the President never pushed anybody to twist the facts,” she said.

She also denied Clarke was not given access to Bush personally and that his policy proposals to deal with al Qaida were ignored. Some family members of victims expressed anger. “No one wants to take any responsibility. Three thousand people died and all they want to talk about is structural problems. They should be ashamed of themselves,” said Bob McIlvaine, whose son died when the World Trade Center towers were destroyed in New York.

Commissioner Jamie Gorelick, another Democrat, described the FBI’s response to the threat in the weeks before the attack as “feckless.”

“Yes, the attorney general was briefed but there was no evidence of any activity by him about this,” she said.

“Have you actually looked at the messages that the FBI put out? To me, and you’re free to comment on them, they are feckless. They don’t tell anybody anything. They don’t bring anyone to battle stations.”

Rice said that on entering office in January 2001, the Bush administration fully understood that al Qaida posed a serious threat. She said Bush was regularly briefed by CIA chief George Tenet.

“President Bush understood the threat, and he understood its importance. He made clear to us that he did not want to respond to al Qaida one attack at a time. He told me he was ‘tired of swatting flies’,” Rice said.

That drew a sharp response from Kerrey. “Can you tell me one example where the President swatted a fly when it came to al Qaida prior to 9/11?” he asked. Rice:“I think he felt that what the agency was doing was going after individual terrorists here and there and that’s what he meant by swatting flies.”