March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Richard Clarke, who wrote a book criticizing President George W. Bush for downplaying terrorism before Sept. 11, 2001, may have lied to lawmakers probing intelligence failures.

The Tennessee Republican senator said on the Senate floor that in July 2002, Clarke told a House-Senate inquiry investigating the attacks that the administration had tried thwart al-Qaeda beforehand.

Clarke, 53, who left the administration last year, has said he avoided criticizing Bush publicly while working for the White House.

``Loyalty to any administration will be no defense if it is found that he has lied before Congress,'' said Frist, 52.

Republicans are rallying to Bush's side after Clarke on Wednesday told an independent commission looking into the attacks that Bush hadn't made fighting terrorism a priority.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert said he supports efforts to declassify Clarke's testimony to the congressional panel.

``We need to lean forward in making as much information available to the public as possible,'' Hastert, a Republican who represents Chicago-area suburbs and farms, said in a written statement.

Bush's role in fighting terrorism and ordering the invasion of Iraq are issues in his campaign for a second term. National polls in the past month showed that while Bush is tied with Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry for support overall, a majority of voters say Bush, 57, would do a better job handling terrorism and homeland defense than Kerry, 60, a U.S. senator from Massachusetts.

Clarke advised President Bill Clinton on terrorism and continued in that role after Bush took office in January 2001. His book, which has ranked first in Amazon.com Inc.'s Web site, detailed his criticisms of Bush. ``I believe the Bush administration in the first eight months considered terror an important issue but not an urgent issue,'' he told the Sept. 11 panel.

Frist called Clarke's assertions ``awesomely self-serving'' attempts to sell his book, which Frist called ``an appalling act of profiteering.''

Presidential national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, facing criticism for refusing to testify publicly before the independent commission, has requested another private session with the panel to rebut Clarke.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Bliss in Washington jbliss@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 26, 2004 17:11 EST