US 'launched bin Laden offensive day before 9/11'

ONE day before September 11, senior Bush administration officials agreed to try to overthrow Afghanistan's Taliban rulers if a final diplomatic push to expel Osama bin Laden failed, a federal panel said yesterday.

The independent commission reviewing the attacks said that, in the years before the attacks, the Clinton and Bush administrations chose to use diplomatic rather than military options, which allowed bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders to elude capture.

The commission said, that three years before the attacks, Saudi Arabia won a commitment from the Taliban to expel bin Laden, but Afghan leaders reneged.