WASHINGTON D.C., September 21 (IslamOnline & news Agencies) - The White House on Friday announced support for an independent commission to probe intelligence failures before September 11, following testimony from Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officials.

The White House and security agencies have come under attack for failing to take action after receiving “chatter” that is believed to have provided information about September 11 before the attacks.

CIA and FBI officials testified anonymously Friday on how their agencies failed to pursue key terror suspects that participated in the hijackings.

A Federal Bureau of Investigations agent based in New York testified to a congressional panel he had warned his superiors in an e-mail message just two weeks before the attacks that the investigations should be given urgent attention.

"Someday, someone will die, and ... the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain problems," read the prophetic message dated August 29, according to the FBI agent.

The agent, testifying in a joint House-Senate investigation, said his superiors told him that the matter could not be pursued because the "wall" separating intelligence matters from criminal investigations could not be breached.

The agent, and a Central Intelligence Agency officer testifying separately, spoke from behind an opaque glass screen, where only their voices could be heard.

As the testimony ended White House officials announced that Bush would support an independent commission to investigate intelligence failures leading to the deadly September 11 terror strikes in the United States.

Bush Administration officials had earlier opposed the query, fearing leaks of classified information and a doubling up of work that Congress investigators were already conducting.

"Everything that could have gone wrong did," the CIA officer said as he testified, admitting that his agency should have quickly shared information about two suspects they had been tracking who were known terrorists with the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

CIA agents identified Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi as terrorists after they attended an al-Qae’da meeting in Malaysia in January 2000 - but failed to share the information, so the two Saudi men were able to enter the United States soon after and live openly in southern California under their real names.

The men were not put on a watch list until August 2001, the officials said.

"Why are you following these guys?" the FBI agent testified as asking his CIA colleagues. "I was told they didn't have the authority to tell me but would try to in the future," the agent testified.

Yet despite the watch list both Alhazmi and Almihdhar were able to board a major airline flight, and along with three accomplices, hijack the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.

Legislators from both major parties shook their heads in disbelief as they heard the witnesses.

"This was failure piled upon failure," said Carl Levin, a Democratic senator from Michigan.

Also listening in were relatives of September 11 attack victims.