NEW YORK: Former US president Bill Clinton said yesterday that his administration had thwarted a number of large-scale terror attacks, but he acknowledged its efforts were "not enough" to prevent the horror of September 11.

Mr Clinton would not comment directly on the mini-series, which aired in two parts on Sunday and Monday in Australia, that suggested he was soft on al-Qai'da, but he said his administration had stopped other similar attacks.

During his administration "some attacks were prevented, acouple that would have done asmuch damage as 9/11", he said, at the dedication of a September 11 memorial in Bayonne, New Jersey.

"Many cells were rooted out, but in the end, it was not enough."

Clinton aides criticised the American Broadcasting Corporation's Path to 9/11.

A spokesman noted that the pro football game featuring quarterback brothers Peyton and Eli Manning overwhelmingly drew more viewers.

Mr Clinton "made the choice that most Americans made", said Jay Carson, a Clinton Foundation spokesman.

"Of a fictionalised drama version of September 11 or the Manning brothers playing football against one another, he chose the latter."

In Washington, the 9/11 commission co-chairmen politely disagreed about the movie.

Former Republican governor of New Jersey, Tom Kean, a consultant to the production, said: "I think they did a pretty good job."

But former Democrat congressman Lee Hamilton said: "It is either a documentary or it is a drama and to fudge it causes me a great deal of concern and suggests to me that news and entertainment are getting dangerously intertwined.

"And I do not think that is good for the country."

theaustralian.news.com.au

Not necessarily Clinton, but the complaints about this movie were duplicitous of the liberal side of the equasion.  They defend that Farenheit 911 and bowling for coulumnbine as legitamate documentaries and attack something called a dramatization that essentially fudged everything but real facts.  What exact did they not like or dispute as factual?  I thought the movie came off as middle of the road and that everyone dropped the ball because there was no way at that time for agencies to share the wealth of info that was available.  It did not come across to me that they were out to punch any administration, but the state of the beaurocracy that prohibited or government from protecting us effectively.  I just don't see what the big deal was.