Attack on the 'war-time president'

By Rob Watson BBC Washington correspondent

Two days of hearings by the US commission investigating the 11 September attacks with high-profile members of the Clinton and Bush administration showed a great deal of agreement.

This wasn't a blame game between the former Democratic administration and the current Republican one.

The overall message was that there was only one thing that they could have done to have taken out al-Qaeda, and that would have been to launch a US invasion of Afghanistan.

And Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright, Donald Rumsfeld, and former Clinton National Security Adviser Samuel Berger said that no-one in the US or overseas would have supported an invasion before the attacks of 11 September.

But politics came to the hearings with the testimony of former counter-terrorism co-ordinator turned Bush administration critic, Richard Clarke.

Frustration at inaction

His testimony came only days after he released a book in which he harshly criticised the Bush administration's conduct of the war on terror.

His testimony, as expected, was not good news for the Bush administration.

I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism - He ignored it Richard Clarke Richard Clarke profile Attack rattles White House

Under the Clinton administration, Mr Clarke told the commission that there was "no higher priority" than combating terrorists.

But in a damning comparison, he said the Bush administration before 11 September, fighting terrorism had been "an important issue, but not an urgent issue".

That is a sound-bite that the American people will hear over and over again.

For emphasis, he made the point that the lack of urgency was despite daily warnings by the CIA and attempts by people like himself to alert the administration to the terror threat they faced.

What was fascinating and revealing about Mr Clarke's testimony is the frustration he felt in trying to alert both Republican and Democratic presidents alike to the threat of catastrophic terrorism by Islamic extremists.

He made the point that up until the attacks of 11 September that so few Americans had been killed that everyone thought he was crazy, overreacting and overexaggerating the threat.

Political damage?

It is too early to tell how damaging Mr Clarke's allegations will be to the Bush administration and its re-election hopes.

But one can tell how worried the Bush White House is by its aggressive reaction to Mr Clarke, with a broad effort to undermine his credibility.

The Bush administration has released a past press briefing in which the former counter-terrorism aide defended White House policies.

His credibility will be undermined by saying one thing when he was an administration official and saying another thing after he left office.

The other saving grace for the Bush administration is that I suspect that American public will come to the conclusion - partly as a result of what the commission will find - that both the Clinton and Bush administrations did not do enough to stop this threat.

But none of this will do President Bush much good in his re-election year.

His re-election pitch is based on his stewardship of the war against terrorism.

Anything that calls that into question clearly threatens his central argument for re-election.

Whether or not the central allegations by Mr Clarke stick, the whole row that has been going on clearly doesn't help his re-election chances.