US President George W. Bush said he and Vice President Dick Cheney answered every question from the panel investigating the September 11th attacks and denied their joint appearance was aimed at keeping their story straight.
In comments afterward in the White House Rose Garden, President Bush declared the , three-hour-and-10-minute session yesterday "a success" that he hoped would lead to recommendations about how to guard against future attacks because "we are still vulnerable to attack".
He dismissed criticism from Democrats that he wanted to appear together with Mr Cheney so they would not contradict each other.
"Look, if we had something to hide we wouldn't have met with them in the first place. We answered all their questions. As I say, I came away good about the session because I wanted them to know how I set strategy, how we run the White House, how we deal with threats," Mr Bush said.
The president had only agreed to meet the commission under pressure from victims' families and the panel, and only on condition he have Mr Cheney at his side and they meet in private, with no recording of the session. They were not under oath.
Mr Bush and Mr Cheney gathered with the five Republicans and five Democrats on the commission in the Oval Office.
Citing several sources, NBC News reported Bush revealed new details about the chaos of September 11. In one example of the confusion of that day, officials at the White House were worried about a flight from Spain and wanted permission to shoot it down if necessary, NBC said.
Mr Bush told the commission he issued that order after arriving at Strategic Command headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska, and learned later the plane had turned back to Madrid, according to the report.
NBC also reported that Mr Bush was critical of his former counterterrorism chief, Mr Richard Clarke. Mr Clarke has said Mr Bush did not heed his warnings that al-Qaeda was an urgent threat.
The White House admitted one area of questioning was related to Mr Bush's response to an August 6th, 2001, presidential intelligence memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike In US" that Mr Bush released under pressure from the commission on April 10th.
The memo said al-Qaeda members were in the United States before the September 2001 airliner attacks and that the FBI had detected suspicious patterns of activity "consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks".
Mr Bush has said the memo's usefulness was limited because it did not point to a specific target, a position he maintained.
The commission issued a statement that said Mr Bush and Mr Cheney had been "forthcoming and candid" and their input would be of great assistance in its final report.