WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House on Monday intensified its criticism of former anti-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke, accusing him of inaccuracies and election-year grandstanding in a book that is sharply critical of President Bush's leadership in the war on terror. Clarke "wasn't in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff," Vice President Dick Cheney asserted.

Cheney suggested Clarke "may have had a grudge to bear," that he had left the White House after being passed over for a promotion.

On the eve of public hearings by the federal panel reviewing the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Cheney and other top administration officials sought to counter accusations by Clarke that Bush was so pre-occupied with Iraq both before and after those attacks that he failed to effectively confront threats from the al-Qaida terror network.

Cheney, in a telephone interview with radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, said Clarke "clearly missed a lot of what was going on" during the two years he worked at the Bush White House.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said on CNN, "I really don't know what Richard Clarke's motivations are, but I'll tell you this: Richard Clarke had plenty of opportunities to tell us in the administration that he thought the war on terrorism was moving in the wrong direction and he chose not to."

And the president's press secretary, Scott McClellan, told a White House briefing: "His assertion that there was something we could have done to prevent the Sept. 11th attacks from happening is deeply irresponsible. It's offensive and it's flat-out false."

Clarke resigned his White House job 13 months ago, after holding senior posts under Presidents Reagan and Clinton and the first President Bush.

In his book, "Against All Enemies," Clarke wrote that the current president "launched an unnecessary and costly war in Iraq that strengthened the fundamentalist, radical Islamic terrorist movement worldwide."

Cheney said of Clarke's assertions, "I fundamentally disagree with his assessment both of recent history, but also in terms of how to deal with the problem" of global terrorism.

The White House took issue with a conversation Clarke reported he and several other aides had with Bush in the White House Situation Room on Sept. 12, 2001, the day after the terror attacks.

"See if Saddam did this," Bush is quoted by Clarke as saying.

McClellan said Bush "doesn't have any recollection" of such a meeting or conversation.

Furthermore, McClellan said, "there's no record of the president being in the Situation Room on that day that … you know, when the president is in the Situation Room, we keep track of that."

McClellan and Rice portrayed Clarke as having left the White House after being passed over to be deputy of the new Department of Homeland Security. They also said he boycotted regular meetings held by Rice, and they cited his friendship with Rand Beers, a national security adviser to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

"It's important to keep in context we're in the heat of a presidential campaign and all of a sudden he comes out with a book that he is seeking to promote … and he is making charges that simply did not happen," McClellan said.

"This is Dick Clarke's American grandstand. He just keeps changing the tune," McClellan added.

The stepped-up White House counterattack comes as the president's re-election campaign is showcasing Bush's role as a wartime president. And it comes a day before the Sept. 11 panel - officially the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States - turns its attention to the accountability of top government officials in two days of public hearings on counterterrorism.

Clarke is scheduled to testify, along with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and top national security officials from the Clinton administration. Rice was invited but declined.

McClellan noted that Rice had privately met with the commission for four hours.

Seven Democratic senators, meanwhile, wrote to Bush protesting the decision not to allow her to testify, saying her refusal "can only lead the American people to one conclusion: that she has something to hide and is not fully committed to finding the truth."

Signing the letter were Sens. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Jon Corzine of New Jersey, Hillary Clinton of New York, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Charles Schumer of New York.

Bush and Cheney have agreed to private, separate meetings with the commission's chairman and vice chairman. McClellan said there has been no decision on scheduling.

AP-WS-03-22-04 1739EST