HIGHLIGHTS: White House Officials Concede for First Time Administration Received Warnings Well Ahead of September Attacks||Congress Wants Disclosure Investigated||President Was Briefed on Possible Hijackings But Not-Not- on Use of Aeroplanes as Missiles by Suicide Hijackers||STORY: The Bush administration defended itself against charges that it had failed to respond adequately to intelligence data highlighting the threat of hijackings prior to the September 11 attacks on US targets. (Read photo caption)

The White House had to admit Wednesday that President George W. Bush had received general warnings a month before the September 11 strikes that terrorists, including those led by Osama bin Laden, could hijack US passenger planes.

The disclosure marks the first time White House officials conceded they knew that terror groups such as al-Qaeda planned to target US airlines weeks before the deadly strikes against New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon that left about 3,000 people dead.

The admission got front-page coverage in all major US newspapers and drew strong criticism in Congress, where Democratic and Republican lawmakers called on the White House to provide all the facts and pressed for a thorough investigation.

Seeking to defuse the gathering storm, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush had been briefed in early August about the hijacking threat, but strenuously denied that any mention had been made of suicide bombers turning planes into guided missiles.

"Throughout the summer, the administration received heightened reporting on threats on US interests and territories, most of it focused on threats abroad," Fleischer said. "As a result, several actions were taken to button down security. All appropriate action was taken based on the threat information that the United States government received."

"The president did not -- not -- receive information about the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers. This was a new type of attack that had not been foreseen," he added.

He said the president was briefed on potential hijackings by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The revelation came amid signs of growing frustration in Congress with US intelligence and law enforcement agencies, which some lawmakers blame for failing to discern red flags ahead of the catastrophe or act upon them.

"We had not received this information, and I think the Congress should have this known, should know this information ... that's what we need to find out in the days ahead," House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt said Thursday

"We need an inquiry, we need to know what information was given to the White House and what they did with it," he added.

The leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate, Thomas Daschle, concurred.

Meanwhile the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Shelby, stressed the need to probe the role played by the CIA and the FBI in the events prior to September 11.

PHOTO CAPTION

House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Missouri, talked with reporters Thursday about concerns that the federal government may have failed to connect clues to the September 11 attacks. Some lawmakers -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- demanded answers Thursday from the White House after disclosures that the federal government might have missed several pre-September 11 clues that suggested the United States would be the subject of a terrorist attack.