WASHINGTON - In the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI, an internal administration budget document shows.

The document, dated Oct. 12, 2001, shows that the FBI requested $1.5 billion in additional funds to enhance its counterterrorism efforts with the creation of 2,024 positions. But the White House Office of Management and Budget cut that request to $531 million.

Attorney General John Ashcroft, working within the White House limits, cut the FBI's request for items such as computer networking and foreign language intercepts by half, cut a cyber-security request by three-quarters and eliminated entirely a request for "collaborative capabilities."

The document was one of several administration papers obtained and given to The Washington Post by the Center for American Progress, a liberal group run by former Clinton chief of staff John D. Podesta. The papers show that Ashcroft resisted FBI requests for more counterterrorism funding immediately after the attacks.

The documents are being released as Clinton and Bush administration officials prepare to testify this week about their counterterrorism efforts before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks.

White House spokesman Taylor Gross noted that FBI funding has increased by more than 50 percent between 2000 and 2004, not including supplemental funds such as those requested after Sept. 11. Under President George W. Bush, "the FBI has been reformed to make counterterrorism its No. 1 priority," Gross said. "No matter what sort of rhetoric gets thrown about in a campaign season, it doesn't change the fact that this president is committed to fighting the war on terrorism."

The document showing the FBI request after the Sept. 11 attacks was part of the OMB "passback" process, in which the budget office reviews and pares agency requests. Though it is typical for the White House to reduce agency requests, Bush's foes think the sharp reduction in the FBI's counterterrorism request could be politically damaging for the president.

"Despite multiple terror warnings before and after 9/11, [Bush] repeatedly rejected counterterrorism resources that his own security agencies said was desperately needed to protect America," said David Sirota, spokesman for Podesta's group, which plans to post the documents on its Web site today.

In a further blow to the Bush camp a former counterterrorism coordinator said that national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, "looked skeptical" when she was warned early in 2001 about the threat from al-Qaida and appeared never to have heard of the organization.

"Her facial expression gave me the impression that she had never heard the term before," wrote Richard A. Clarke in a new book, "Against All Enemies," that is scathingly critical of Bush's response to the 2001 terror attacks.

Clarke, expected to testify tomorrow before a federal panel investigating the attacks, recounted his meeting with Rice as support for his contention that the Bush administration failed to recognize the risk of an attack by al-Qaida in the months leading to Sept. 11, 2001. Clarke retired in March 2003.

Clarke said that within one week of the Bush inauguration he "urgently" sought a meeting of senior cabinet leaders to discuss "the imminent al-Qaida threat."

Months later, in April, Clarke met with deputy secretaries. During that meeting, he wrote, the Defense Department's Paul Wolfowitz told Clarke, "You give [Osama] bin Laden too much credit," and he said Wolfowitz sought to steer the discussion to Iraq.

This story was supplemented with wire reports.

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