Washington ? National security adviser Condoleezza Rice vigorously defended the Bush administration’s handling of terrorist threats in testimony Thursday before the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, saying “there was no silver bullet” that could have stopped the plot.

But Rice’s testimony came amid disclosures from the commission that President Bush was warned in a highly classified intelligence briefing five weeks before the attacks that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was intent on striking targets on U.S. soil.

The title of the briefing — “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.” — was revealed Thursday, as were some of its contents, including a warning that the FBI had detected domestic activity “consistent with preparation for hijackings.”

The significance of the briefing was the subject of a testy exchange between Rice and a Democrat on the panel, and the hearing ended with commission Chairman Thomas H. Kean, former Republican governor of New Jersey, calling for the full document to be declassified.

“We feel it is important that the American people get a chance to see it,” Kean said. “We are awaiting an answer on our request and hope by next week’s hearing that we might have it.”

The commission is scheduled to hear testimony Tuesday and Wednesday from top law enforcement officials.

Rice did not directly respond, except to say earlier during the hearing that the panel had already been granted “exceptional access” to the document. Later Thursday, administration officials said the document would be declassified at an unspecified time.

Speaking to a nation

The hearing, held in a packed chamber on Capitol Hill, combined history and high political drama. It marked the first time that Rice, one of Bush’s closest advisers, testified publicly about the administration’s counterterrorism efforts before the attacks. It represented Rice’s opportunity to rebut testimony at an earlier hearing during which former White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke said the Bush administration had largely ignored the terrorist threat during its first eight months in office.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is sworn in before testifying to the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. Rice acknowledged Thursday that President Bush received a CIA briefing five weeks before 9-11 that included, even in its title, details about al-Qaida's desire to strike inside the United States, but she insisted the attacks couldn't have been prevented.

While Rice’s answers were primarily aimed at the 10 members of the bipartisan panel, she also spoke in broad terms to a nation still struggling to come to grips with the attacks, and weighing the administration’s performance in the war on terrorism.

Bush and his wife, Laura, watched Rice’s testimony from their ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Rice sought to portray the White House as engaged and acutely aware of the terrorist threat, but exasperated by the “frustratingly vague” intelligence it was getting on al-Qaida’s intentions, and hampered by bureaucratic and political obstacles that seemed impassable before the attacks awakened America to terrorist dangers.

The most significant new information centered on the classified briefing — known as the president’s daily brief, or “PDB” — that Bush received from the CIA on Aug. 6, 2001.

Although it has been known for some time that Bush received a briefing that day mentioning the possibility that terrorists might seek to hijack aircraft, the title and other details had not been disclosed.

During questioning, Rice said, “I believe the title was ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the United States.’ ” A U.S. intelligence official, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, said the actual title was, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”

Rice’s answer came in response to a pointed round of questioning by Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democrat and former Watergate prosecutor. Ben-Veniste said the commission had until Thursday been denied permission by the White House to disclose so much as the title of the briefing, and the bulk of its contents remain classified. Ben-Veniste went on to say the briefing warned the FBI had detected “a pattern of suspicious activity in the country, up until Aug. 6, consistent with preparation for hijackings.”

Downplaying a briefing

The revelations would seem to contradict long-standing claims by Rice and other Bush administration officials that all of the threat reporting and intelligence information they received during the months before 9-11 pointed exclusively to attacks on overseas targets.

Rice sought to downplay the significance of the briefing, saying it was prepared by the CIA in response to a request by Bush for information on domestic threats, and that much of its contents were “speculative” or old intelligence.

“It was historical information based on old reporting,” Rice said. “There was no new threat information, and it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.”

Bush was in Crawford when he received the August 2001 briefing, and did not return to Washington until the end of that month.

Rice also acknowledged Thursday that she had been told by Clarke in early 2001 that al-Qaida had sleeper cells in the United States, but said she could not remember whether she had ever shared this information with Bush.

She dismissed his complaint that his pleas for action were ignored, saying “not once during this period” did Clarke complain to her that federal agencies weren’t responding adequately to the threat warnings preceding the attacks.