WASHINGTON, March 24: The US government had approved a plan to overthrow the Taliban government only a day before the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, an independent panel probing the attacks was told on Wednesday.

The panel was also told that after years of delay caused by inadequate intelligence, the US government finally agreed to overthrow the Taliban government if a diplomatic push to expel Osama bin Laden from the country failed.

Witnesses who appeared before the panel on Tuesday and Wednesday also said the Taliban had considered expelling Osama from his sanctuary in 1998, after diplomatic and military pressure from the United States and Saudi Arabia.

In the fall of 1998, following cruise missile strikes against training camps in Afghanistan, the United States "received substantial intelligence of internal arguments (among Taliban leaders) over whether Osama could stay" in the country, said the panel's investigator, Michael Hurley.

A staff statement prepared by Mr Hurley and other commission investigators laid out for the first time details of this campaign, painting a picture of US officials struggling to find leverage against an Afghan leadership that seemed to care nothing for international opinion and trying to engage the assistance of putative allies that it could not trust.

In May 1998, Mr Hurley said, Saudi authorities had uncovered an Osama plot to attack US forces in the country by using "a variety of man-portable missiles. Scores of individuals were arrested".

Seizing the opportunity, President Clinton sent CIA chief George Tenet to Saudi Arabia. Mr Tenet obtained the agreement of Crown Prince Abdullah to secretly pressure Taliban chief Mullah Omar to hand Osama over.

The investigation follows allegations that the Clinton and Bush administrations moved too slowly against Al Qaeda, allowing the group and its leaders to elude capture repeatedly and plan the attack in the United States.

Both present and former secretaries of states - Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright - challenged the assumption and said their respective administrations did everything possible to combat Al Qaeda's threat.