WASHINGTON, March 24: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday the United States took no military action against Al Qaeda before Sept 11, 2001, because it regarded cruise missile strikes as ineffectual and was developing a more comprehensive strategy.

Even with "actionable intelligence", it was unlikely the attacks on the United States could have been averted, Mr Rumsfeld told members of a commission investigating the attacks in the United States.

Mr Rumsfeld was grilled by commission members on why the Pentagon did not do more to stop Al Qaeda after having experienced a devastating suicide attack on the USS Cole on Oct 10, 2000.

The commission members said that in the summer of 2001, a spike in threat reports indicated that Al Qaeda was planning a major attack. Mr Rumsfeld argued that the military had developed "response options" to terrorist attacks, but had no comprehensive plan for dealing with Al Qaeda, and he deeply believed that the president should not retaliate merely by firing cruise missiles.

"If he was going to make a response, he had to put people on the ground, he had to put people at risk, he had to show a seriousness of purpose or the administration would be seen as a continuum of lobbying cruise missiles after an attack, with relatively modest success," he said.

But a comprehensive strategy was not ready until Sept 4, seven days before militants flewairliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, he said. -AFP