The former US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, has said that ex-President Bill Clinton did all he could to defeat al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden.
Ms Albright said she and other members of the administration would have been prepared to kill from the time of the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Africa until the day President Clinton left office.
Ms Albright was the first of several top officials testifying before an independent commission examining the attacks on America on 11 September 2001.
In his testimony, Secretary of State Colin Powell, defended the current administration against the wider charge that it simply did not take al-Qaeda seriously enough.
The top officials are appearing before the inquiry just days after the former White House counter-terrorism advisor, Richard Clarke, made serious allegations about the Bush administration.
Mr Clarke alleged that Mr Rumsfeld used the 11 September attacks as an excuse to strike at Iraq, rather than Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda was based.
Mr Rumsfeld has denied the allegation.
Earlier, a commission report said the Bush administration had agreed on a plan one day before the attacks to combat bin Laden, which moved only gradually from diplomatic pressure to military action.
The report is likely to raise more questions about Bush's election campaign assertion that he has done everything he could to protect the American people.
