President Bush yesterday angrily insisted that if he had known of a specific threat to attack the US, "I would have done everything in my power to protect the American people," writes Patrick Smyth, Washington Correspondent
As the drip-drip of claims about what the administration knew prior to September 11th appeared to reach critical mass, the White House went into defensive mode and Democrats abandoned the bipartisanship which has restrained their comments on the war for months.
"I want the troops here to know that I take my job as commander-in-chief very seriously," Mr Bush told air force cadets and officers in a Rose Garden ceremony honouring their football team. Mr Bush is understood to see the attacks by Democrats as electioneering and spoke bitterly yesterday also of Washington's culture, where "second-guessing is second nature".
The comments followed the revelation on Wednesday that Mr Bush had been warned in August about the generalised threat of hijackings. Yesterday it also emerged that plans commissioned by the administration early last spring on options for launching a major offensive to dismantle al-Qaeda's international network and funding were sitting on the desk of the National Security Adviser, Ms Condoleezza Rice, on September 11th.
The White House press secretary, Mr Ari Fleischer, said the memo recommended dismantling bin Laden's network "through what you saw put into place rather quickly in our operations in Afghanistan - through work with the Northern Alliance to dismantle al-Qaeda and the Taliban."
He did not say whether the memo included air strikes and ground troops, both of which were used in Afghanistan. A senior US official said ground troops were not a primary option in the memo, having been approved by Mr Bush only after debate after September 11th.
It emerged also that a mid-1990s report on the psychological and sociological dimension of terrorism commissioned by the Clinton administration actually predicted the possibility of suicide plane attacks on buildings. Concern has also focused on a Phoenix FBI report, warning of terrorist interests in flying schools, which was shelved by headquarters' overworked terrorism office.
The White House yesterday conceded the need for an investigation into events leading to September 11th, but one that would be "responsible".
That is taken to mean Democratic calls for an independent inquiry are unlikely to be acceptable, but a congressional inquiry, some of it behind closed doors, might.
The Democratic Senate Majority Leader, Mr Tom Daschle, yesterday stood behind questions his party colleagues and some Republicans are raising. "I don't think that anyone is second-guessing," he said. "We're simply trying to ensure that this never happens again. And the only way you assure that this never happens again is to ensure we have the right facts, and the confidence that mistakes that may have been made will not be repeated."
For Democrats the opportunity is irresistible. The chance has come to dent what they see as the most politically debilitating "myth" that the US is safer under a Republican.