Bush Aides Block Clinton's Papers From 9/11 Panel

The White House confirmed on Thursday that it had withheld a variety of classified documents from Mr. Clinton's files that had been gathered by the National Archives over the last two years in response to requests from the commission, which is investigating intelligence and law enforcement failures before the attacks.

Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said some Clinton administration documents had been withheld because they were "duplicative or unrelated," while others were withheld because they were "highly sensitive" and the information in them could be relayed to the commission in other ways. "We are providing the commission with access to all the information they need to do their job," Mr. McClellan said.

The commission and the White House were reacting to public complaints from former aides to Mr. Clinton, who said they had been surprised to learn in recent months that three-quarters of the nearly 11,000 pages of files the former president was ready to offer the commission had been withheld by the Bush administration. The former aides said the files contained highly classified documents about the Clinton administration's efforts against Al Qaeda.

Mr. Lindsey, who is Mr. Clinton's liaison to the National Archives, said he was surprised to discover from the archives in later months that the Bush administration, after reviewing the Clinton documents gathered by researchers there, had decided not to turn over most of the material.

He said he had read through many of the 10,800 pages that were collected and believed them to be valuable to the work of the panel.

"They involved all of the issues — Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, terrorism, all of the areas with the commission's jurisdiction," he said.