Bush admits September 11 warnings

President George W Bush was warned of a possible plot to hijack American planes by Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network weeks before the September 11 attacks.

The Bush administration then issued a private warning to federal agents, according to White House spokesman, Ari Fleisher.

But the President and his advisers had no way of knowing that suicide hijackers would use the planes as missiles, as they did against the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

The development comes as congressional investigators intensify their study of whether the government failed to adequately respond to warnings of suicide hijackings before September 11.