White House denies it sat on Clinton's al-Qa'ida plan

The White House has denied it sat on a detailed and comprehensive plan to tackle al-Qa'ida because of hostility to President Bill Clinton, whose officials drew up the proposals.

A report in Time magazine claimed that details of the plan and an accompanying threat assessment posed by al-Qa'ida were passed to the incoming Bush team. But officials ordered an eight-month review that was completed a week before the 11 September attacks.

Other sources have said intelligence officials intercepted communications in Arabic that made vague references to an impending attack on the US. One, on 10 September, contained the phrases, "Tomorrow is zero hour" and "The match is about to begin". The intercepts were not translated until 12 September.

The Time report said the plan to commit special forces soldiers to hunt down al-Qa'ida leaders was drafted after the attack on the warship USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000. Mr Clinton's terrorism expert, Richard Clarke, presented it to senior officials in December, but they decided the decision should be taken by the new administration.

White House officials have denied the plan was shelved because of bureaucracy or else antipathy towards the Clinton administration.