US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice [File photo]
Last Update: Monday, October 2, 2006. 8:00pm (AEST)

Rice denies brushing off CIA terrorism warning

US Secretary of State Dr Condoleezza Rice has disputed a report that she brushed off the head of the CIA when he warned of a possible attack on the US before September 11, 2001.

She has also described as "simply ludicrous" an account in a new book by veteran journalist Bob Woodward that US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had refused to return her telephone calls.

In State of Denial: Bush at War Part III, Mr Woodward describes a July 10, 2001, meeting, in which then CIA director George Tenet and his top counter-terrorism aide sought to impress on Dr Rice their fears an attack on the US was likely.

An excerpt published in the Washington Post says Mr Tenet made an abrupt request for a meeting with Dr Rice in the hopes of shaking her.

The account says both Mr Tenet and Mr Black felt they were not getting through to Dr Rice, who gave them a polite hearing and a "brush-off".

Mr Woodward's book has been released less than six weeks before America's November 7 mid-term congressional elections.

It has revived questions about whether US President George W Bush and his aides did enough to protect the US before the September 11 attacks.

'Incomprehensible'

Dr Rice says she has no specific recollection of the meeting.

She says threat reporting at the time was about potential attacks abroad rather than at home and denies she was given a warning of a possible strike on the US.

"I don't know that this meeting took place... what I am quite certain of is that [it] was not a meeting in which I was told that there was an impending attack and I refused to respond," she told reporters, as she flew to the Middle East.

"I would remember if I was told, as this account apparently says that there was about to be an attack in the United States.

"The idea that I would somehow have ignored that, I find incomprehensible."

Dr Rice has described steps she and others took before the July 10 meeting mentioned in the book to warn them that an attack on the US was possible, even though intelligence suggested a strike abroad.

The steps included arranging a briefing for US domestic agencies, such as the US Federal Aviation Administration.

She says she and other US officials were constantly sifting intelligence about possible threats, working with foreign governments to try to disrupt potential strikes abroad and taking protective measures, including moving the US Fifth Fleet.

Rumsfeld

Dr Rice has also denied a report that she had trouble getting Mr Rumsfeld to return her calls and that she tried to get him fired.

"The idea that he wasn't returning my phone calls is simply ludicrous," Dr Rice said.

She says she talks to Mr Rumsfeld several times a week.

Dr Rice says when Mr Bush asked her to be his secretary of state, she had floated the idea of replacing his entire national security team because his aides had endured the September 11 attacks and had overseen wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"I said I think maybe you need new people," she said.

"I don't know if that somehow was interpreted - but [I] was actually talking about me."

- Reuters