WASHINGTON: The Bush administration was embroiled on Saturday in a new controversy over its handling of intelligence after the chairman of the commission investigating the September 11 attacks warned he would use the courts and issue subpoenas to obtain evidence from an uncooperative White House.

Thomas Kean, the chairman of the federal commission created last year to investigate the attacks, told the New York Times:

“Anything that has to do with 9/11, we have to see it — anything. There are a lot of theories about 9/11, and as long as there is any document out there that bears on any of those theories, we’re going to leave questions unanswered. And we cannot leave questions unanswered.”

The former Republican governor of New Jersey also warned that his commission would not hesitate to embarrass the White House by launching court proceedings to obtain classified material.

“I will not stand for it,” he told the newspaper. “That means we will use every tool at our command to get hold of every document.”

Members of the bipartisan commission now openly accuse the administration of sabotaging their work through endless delays, making it impossible to meet a May 2004 reporting deadline.

The administration faces two investigations into its processing of classified data relating to the war on Iraq.

A criminal investigation has been opened into the outing of a CIA operative by administration officials.

Senate committees are also investigating the Bush administration’s use of intelligence reports to bolster its claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

The commission has demanded especially sensitive material from the White House: copies of presidential daily briefings for the weeks preceding the attacks.

The object of his inquiry is to reveal how much the White House knew about potential terrorist threats against the World Trade Centre.

Last year the White House confirmed that President George Bush had received a written intelligence report in August 2001 warning that Al Qaeda might try to hijack airliners.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.