Condoleezza Rice today denied a claim that she brushed off attempts to warn her of an imminent terrorist strike against America in the summer of 2001.

The US Secretary of State, who was serving as the National Security Adviser at the time, felt moved to respond to an account of a meeting on July 10, 2001, in the new book, State of Denial, by the Watergate reporter and assistant managing editor of The Washington Post, Bob Woodward.

In an extract published in the newspaper yesterday, Woodward described the frustrations of George Tenet, the former CIA director, and his top counter-terrorism adviser, Cofer Black, as they tried to communicate the seriousness of the threat posed by al-Qaeda.

According to Woodward, Mr Tenet requested an urgent meeting with Ms Rice after receiving a disturbing briefing in the early days of July. He called the National Security Adviser from his car and demanded an immediate opportunity to show her intercepts and other data "showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaeda would soon attack the United States".

But she did not give them sufficient attention, Woodward claimed: "Tenet and Black felt they were not getting through to Rice... She was polite, but they felt the brush-off."

Speaking to journalists this morning at the start of a visit to the Middle East, Ms Rice said that she did not recall a specific meeting with Mr Tenet and Mr Black in July:

"I don’t know that this meeting took place ... what I am quite certain of is that (it) was not a meeting in which I was told that there was an impending attack and I refused to respond," she said.

"I would remember if I was told, as this account apparently says, that there was about to be an attack in the United States. And the idea that I would somehow have ignored that, I find, incomprehensible."

But in a sign of the consternation that Woodward's book — his third about the Bush Administration — has caused, The Washington Post reported today that one of Ms Rice's top advisers, Philip Zelikow, who served as the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, had stayed behind in Washington to check Ms Rice's diaries and put forward a rival account of the alleged meeting.

The ongoing debate of who did what in the run-up to the September 11 attacks and which party, Democrat or Republican, has the more robust anti-terrorism policy has been refreshed by the looming mid-term congressional elections in America, which are now six weeks away.

Ms Rice also denied two other claims made by Woodward, both relating to Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defence, the 74-year-old who has been the butt of a torrent of criticism recently from retired generals who have challenged his management of the war in Iraq.

The Secretary of State, who is often perceived as a counterweight to the hawkish Mr Rumsfeld in the making of foreign policy in the White House, said today that she had not recommended the removal of Mr Rumsfeld from the Pentagon in the reshuffle that accompanied President Bush's second election victory.

She also denied that Mr Bush had been forced to step in and order Mr Rumsfeld to take her phone calls, calling the anecdote "ludicrous".

In an extract of his book published in today's edition of the newspaper, Woodward reported that Ms Rice supported a plan by Andrew Card, Mr Bush's former chief of staff, to demote Mr Rumsfeld in late 2004.

Ms Rice said today that the idea could of come from her suggestion that the entire foreign policy team should be overhauled for Mr Bush's second term.

"I did tell the President at one point that I thought maybe all of us should go, because we had fought two wars and had the largest terrorist attack in American history," she said.

"When he asked me to be Secretary of State I said I think maybe you need new people. I don't know if that was somehow interpreted [as meaning Rumsfeld should be replaced], but what I was actually talking about was me."

Mr Rumsfeld has endured a torrid last seven days: a National Intelligence Estimate made public last week concluded that the war in Iraq has fanned terrorism across the world, a series of congressional hearings criticised the rebuilding of the country and a clutch of retired generals attacked his leadership of the Armed Forces. The New York Times even claimed he cheats at squash.

Yesterday he responded the latest challenge to his grip on the Pentagon with the directness and testiness that has characterised his five and a half years in office.

"I haven’t seen the book. I haven’t read the first two books of his yet either. So I wouldn’t hold your breath on this one," he said of Woodward's book. Asked he had considered resigning, he replied: "No, no, no... How many times do I have to answer?"

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