"I don't know that this meeting took place, but what I really don't know, what I'm quite certain of, is that it was not a meeting in which I was told there was an impending attack and I refused to respond," Rice said.

Speaking to reporters en route to Saudi Arabia and other stops in the Middle East, Rice said she met with Tenet daily at that point, and has no memory of the wake-up call from Tenet described in the book.

"It kind of doesn't ring true that you have to shock me into something I was very involved in," Rice said.

There was near constant discussion of possible attacks overseas, and high alarm, Rice said.

Ashcroft disappointed

Meanwhile, former Attorney General John Ashcroft said Monday that he should have been notified of any such report dealing with a pending attack on the United States. "It just occurred to me how disappointing it was that they didn't come to me with this type of information," Ashcroft said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"The FBI is responsible for domestic terrorism," Ashcroft said. He said both Tenet and Cofer Black of the CIA should have been aware that he had pressed for a more aggressive policy in going after bin Laden and his followers in the United States and should have briefed him as well. Rice knew of this advocacy, he suggested.

According to the Sept. 11 Commission, Ashcroft was briefed on July 5, 2001, "warning that a significant terrorist attack was imminent." The report noted that the briefing addressed only threats outside the United States.

Woodward wrote that the meeting among Tenet, Rice and Black stood out in the minds of Tenet and Black as the "starkest warning they had given the White House" on al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his network.

Tenet asked for the meeting after receiving a disturbing briefing from Black, according to the book.

A former intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Sept. 11 Commission and an earlier joint congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks were both informed of Tenet's and Black's meeting with Rice, when Tenet warned Rice that a significant attack was coming.

Tenet, Black, Rice meeting

In a closed, classified session at CIA headquarters, Tenet told Sept. 11 Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste, the commission's executive director Phil Zelikow and other commission staff about Rice's meeting with Tenet and Black, the official said.

The former intelligence official said the commission kept a transcript of that Jan. 28, 2004, session. A second official familiar with the document, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed its existence.

But though Tenet and Black warned Rice in the starkest terms of the prospects for attack, she brushed them off, Woodward reiterated Monday. He told NBC's "Today" show that Black told him the two men were so emphatic, it amounted to "holding a gun to her head" and doing everything except pulling the trigger.

Black reportedly laid out secret intercepts and other data "showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaida would soon attack the United States." Tenet was so worried that he called Rice from his car and asked to see her right away, the book said.

"Tenet and Black felt they were not getting through to Rice," Woodward wrote of the session. "She was polite, but they felt the brush-off."

Rice referred to the session as "the supposed meeting" and noted that it is not part of the independent Sept. 11 Commission's report.

"I remember that George was very worried and he expressed that," Rice told reporters. "We were all very worried because the threat reporting was quite intense. The problem was that it was also quite nebulous."

Rice, who was promoted to secretary of state in Bush's second term, also said she never argued that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should be fired. The book's suggestion that Rumsfeld would not take her calls is "ludicrous," Rice said.

Rumsfeld and Rice are not close, and he is often considered her rival in administration decision making. Woodward wrote that then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card twice tried to get Bush to sack Rumsfeld and replace him with Bush family counselor James A. Baker III, and that both then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and Rice backed the plan.

Woodward interviewed Rice for his new book.

Rice's latest Middle East trip is focused on strengthening support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other moderate Arab leaders after a series of setbacks for democratic and moderate forces in the region.

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

The proposal was aimed at "putting a stop to the flow of Iraqi blood," said Jalaledin al-Sagir, a senior Shiite member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in
Iraq (SCIRI) party.

The head of the Sunni parliamentary bloc, Adnan al-Dulaimi, told AFP that the latest plan "would be able to put an end to violence and bring stability to Iraq".

"If everyone is honest and keeps to their commitments, it will be positive for the Iraqi people and put an end to the sectarianism. If not, it will be the end of Iraq," said Dulaimi.

The capital's dire security situation was further highlighted by a mass kidnapping carried out by gunmen dressed in military-style fatigues -- the second in as many days.

Of the two dozen people snatched in Sunday's mass kidnapping, 10 of them turned up dead in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Abu Chir, part of the 50 corpses found by police.

Colonel Faris Khalil of Iraqi intelligence was driving along in civilian clothes and an unmarked car on a Baghdad highway, when gunmen roared up next to him and shot him dead, said the interior ministry.

The British and US governments also announced the deaths of three US marines and a British soldier.

For the past six months, Sunni and Shiite death squads have hunted civilians in each other's communities, leaving a grim toll on the streets -- at a rate of 100 dead a day across the country, according to UN and government estimates.

Parliamentarians, meanwhile, have been at loggerheads after revelations Dulaimi's bodyguard had been implicated in a bomb plot against Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, the seat of the government.

In Monday's session, however, parliament speaker Mahmud al-Mashhadani cut off further debate on the subject and forced the fractious deputies to focus on the legislative agenda, including renewing the long-running state of emergency for another month.

But Sunni parliamentarians said the emergency laws needed to be reviewed since they clearly were not improving the situation, alleging that security forces were corrupt.

Even after the measure passed with only 32 deputies out of 275 voting against, Sunni parliamentarian Hussein al-Falluji loudly disputed the action.

"If you don't stop arguing, I will have you ejected," said Mashhadani.

The atmosphere has been tense in parliament after the news of the bomb plot, and several Shiite deputies have called for investigations into Sunni politicians, suggesting they have links with insurgent groups.

The Sunnis riposted that Shiite political parties are sponsoring armed militias responsible for much of the midnight killings across Baghdad.

These shadowy armed groups, many outfitted with government-issue uniforms, carry out assassinations and kidnappings, such as Monday's near the technology university.

Seven government-style pickup trucks pulled up to the Sira computer store in broad daylight and took 14 people, both customers and employees, from the surrounding shops.

The biggest Sunni political party issued a statement accusing militias with official ties of both the computer store kidnapping and Sunday's kidnapping of 26 people from a food processing factory in southwest Baghdad's Amil neighborhood.

"The Iraqi Islamic Party asks how could 26 people, among them women, have been transported from Amil neighborhood to Abu Chir (where their bodies were found) through all those Iraqi and US army checkpoints and patrols?

"This is the bloody work of the terrorist militias that constantly make people experience the color of death and torture," it added.

But while there have been several moves into Sunni insurgent-infested neighborhoods in western and southern Baghdad, coalition forces have been hesitant to enter the teeming Shiite slum of Sadr City.

In other violence across the country on Monday, at least 12 people were killed including three soldiers from the Iraqi army's quick reaction force.

"A suicide bomber tried to attack a foreign troop convoy," said Paktiawal, adding that three passers-by were wounded and that three NATO peacekeepers had minor injuries.

The body of the bomber was in pieces scattered across the area, an AFP reporter said. There were bloodstains on the road and sidewalk. Afghan police and international troops cordoned off the area.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed its convoy was on the road as the explosion took place and that three ISAF soldiers were wounded, an ISAF spokesman, Flight Lieutenant Euan Downie, said.

"We've three ISAF very minor injuries," said Downie, adding that the explosion may have been caused by a "possible suicide" attack or a roadside bomb.

Police chief Paktiawal said his department had arrested an accomplice of the suicide bomber in the same area who was dressed in a military uniform, adding that he was being interrogated.

"He had given a ride to the suicide attacker on a motor bike and he was in the neighbourhood," he said.

"Upon receiving the tip-off we cordoned the whole neighbourhood and arrested the limping terrorist in Afghan army uniform," Paktiawal added.

The attack comes two days after another suicide attack near the Afghan Ministry of Interior, which took 13 lives and wounded around 15.

The existing UAVs can be easily carried in a backpack and launched by hand, but they typically require a team of trained operators on the ground, and perform only short-term tasks individually rather than in coordinated groups.

However, the prototype of the fleet under development would automatically maintain the "health" of its vehicles -- for example, vehicles would anticipate when they need refueling, and new vehicles would automatically launch to replace lost, damaged, or grounded ones.

MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Professor Jonathan How, who heads the research team, believes such a fleet of UAVs could one day help U.S. military and security agencies in difficult or dangerous missions, such as search-and-rescue operations, sniper detection, convoy protection and border patrol.

The test platform under development consists of five miniature helicopters, each a little smaller than a seagull.

The Government of the United Kingdom has requested a possible sale of two MQ-9 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) aircraft, one Ground Control Station, two Multi-Spectral Targeting Systems, one Mobile Ground Control Station, two Lynx Synthetic Aperture Radar (airborne), Ku-Band Communications spares, Lynx Synthetic Aperture Radar Spares, engineering support, test equipment, ground support, operational flight test support, communications equipment, technical assistance, personnel training/equipment, spare and repair parts, and other related elements of logistics support. The estimated cost is $77 million.

The United Kingdom is a major political and economic power in NATO and the Atlantic and a key democratic partner of the United States in ensuring peace and stability in this region and around the world.

The United Kingdom requests these capabilities to provide for the defense of deployed troops, regional security, and interoperability with the U.S.. This program will increase the United Kingdom's ability to contribute to future NATO, coalition, and anti-terrorism operations that the U.S. may undertake.

The United Kingdom is a staunch supporter of the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Global War on Terror. United Kingdom troops are deployed in support of Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, where U.S. assets currently provide this proposed capability. By acquiring this capability, the United Kingdom will be able to provide the same level of protection for its own forces and those of the U.S..

The proposed sale of this equipment and support will not affect the basic military balance in the region and the United Kingdom will have no difficulty absorbing these aircraft into its armed forces.

The principal contractors will be:

- General Atomics Aeronautical Systems San Diego, California
- Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems El Segundo, California
- General Atomics Lynx Systems San Diego, California

There are no known offset agreements proposed in connection with this potential sale. Implementation of this proposed sale will not require the assignment of any U.S. Government or contractor representatives to the United Kingdom.

There will be no adverse impact on U.S. defense readiness as a result of this proposed sale.

This notice of a potential sale is required by law; it does not mean that the sale has been concluded.