WASHINGTON - In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration received intelligence that Osama bin Laden could be plotting to hijack U.S. aircraft, prompting it to put security agencies on alert, the White House said on Wednesday.

"The information the president got dealt with hijackings in the traditional sense, not suicide bombers, not using planes as missiles," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said of the intelligence, which was presented to President Bush last summer.

Fleischer said the information prompted the administration to put domestic law enforcement agencies on alert, though it was not announced publicly.

"The administration, based on hijackings, notified the appropriate agencies and, I think, that's one of the reasons that you saw that the people who committed the 9/11 attacks used box cutters and plastic knives to get around America's system of protecting against hijackings," Fleischer said.

The disclosure followed reports that an FBI agent urged the bureau to investigate Middle Eastern men enrolled in U.S. flight schools several months before Sept. 11, even naming bin Laden, who Washington later accused of masterminding the attacks.

When four hijacked airliners plowed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, Middle Eastern men trained at U.S. flight schools were at the controls. The attacks killed more than 3,000 people and destroyed the World Trade Center.

Fleischer said Bush had been given general information about the threat of hijackings by bin Laden. "That was information that has been known and the president was informed of it," he said.

But Fleischer would not discuss specific information Bush received during his daily intelligence briefings. "We don't discuss the president's morning briefings as a matter of policy," Fleischer said.

"I will say that there has been long-standing speculation, which was shared with the president, about the potential of hijackings in the traditional sense ... I've also indicated that we've had threatens involving bin Laden around the world, and including in the United States," Fleischer said.

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