Washington ? The White House on Monday intensified its criticism of former anti-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke, accusing him of inaccuracies and election-year grandstanding in a book that is sharply critical of President Bush’s leadership in the war on terror. Clarke “wasn’t in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff,” Vice President Dick Cheney asserted.

Cheney suggested Clarke “may have had a grudge to bear,” that he had left the White House after being passed over for a promotion.

On the eve of public hearings by the federal panel reviewing the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Cheney and other top administration officials sought to counter accusations by Clarke that Bush was so pre-occupied with Iraq both before and after those attacks that he failed to effectively confront threats from the al-Qaida terror network.

Cheney told radio commentator Rush Limbaugh that Clarke “clearly missed a lot of what was going on” during the two years he worked at the Bush White House.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said on CNN, “I really don’t know what Richard Clarke’s motivations are, but I’ll tell you this: Richard Clarke had plenty of opportunities to tell us in the administration that he thought the war on terrorism was moving in the wrong direction, and he chose not to.”

And the president’s press secretary, Scott McClellan, told a White House briefing: “His assertion that there was something we could have done to prevent the Sept. 11th attacks from happening is deeply irresponsible. It’s offensive, and it’s flat-out false.”

In his book, “Against All Enemies,” Clarke wrote that Bush “launched an unnecessary and costly war in Iraq that strengthened the fundamentalist, radical Islamic terrorist movement worldwide.”

The White House took issue with a conversation Clarke reported he and several other aides had with Bush Sept. 12, 2001, the day after the terror attacks.

“See if Saddam did this,” Bush is quoted by Clarke as saying.

McClellan said Bush “doesn’t have any recollection” of such a meeting.

“It’s important to keep in context we’re in the heat of a presidential campaign and all of a sudden he comes out with a book that he is seeking to promote … and he is making charges that simply did not happen,” McClellan said.

“This is Dick Clarke’s American grandstand. He just keeps changing the tune,” he added.