"The NSC's Millennium After-Action Review declares that the United States barely missed major terrorist attacks in 1999 – with luck playing a major role," Ashcroft told the Commission.

"Among the many vulnerabilities in homeland defenses identified, the Justice Department's surveillance and FISA operations were specifically criticized for their glaring weaknesses."

"It is clear from the review," declared Ashcroft, "that actions taken in the Millennium period should not be the operating model for the U.S. government."

The Millennium plot review warned the Clinton administration "of a substantial al-Qaida network and affiliated foreign terrorist presence within the U.S., capable of supporting additional terrorist attacks here," the Bush attorney general said.

"Furthermore, fully seventeen months before the September 11 attacks, the review recommends disrupting the al Qaida network and terrorist presence here using immigration violations, minor criminal infractions, and tougher visa and border controls," he explained.

Ashcroft's comments suggested why a former Clinton national security official might not want the information contained in the Millennium review to ever see the light of day.

"Despite the warnings and the clear vulnerabilities identified by the NSC in 2000," he told the Commission, "no new disruption strategy to attack the al-Qaida network within the United States was deployed. It was ignored in the Department's five-year counterterrorism strategy."

Editor's note: