WASHINGTON, July 23 (AFP) - The report of the commission investigating the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States illustrates that US President George W. Bush "did everything he could" to protect the country ahead of the deadly strikes, Bush's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Friday.
"What the commission says is that this country was not prepared for war, and that that was a problem that had begun in the 1990s, maybe even in the 1980s. The president did everything that he could knowing what we did," Rice told ABC television.
"Had we known that an attack of the magnitude that was coming on September 11 was coming," she added, "we would have moved heaven and earth to stop it."
Asked about passages in the report, released Thursday, which showed that several warnings were made on the risk of an attack on the United States, including in the months just before the 2001 attacks, Rice said the Bush administration, which took office in January 2001, did not have enough time to make the changes needed to thwart such an attack.
"You cannot do the kinds of major reforms that are talked about there, to border security, to airport security, in the eight months President Bush was in office," Rice said.
"What the report says is that this country was not hardened for war, and this is something that the president has said many, many times.
"Now, much has been done since September 11," she said. "We are safer, though we are not yet safe."