Fighter jets dispatched from Langley Air Force Base in southeastern Virginia originally were sent off in the wrong direction, out over the Atlantic.

These details emerged from an interim report released yesterday by the independent commission investigating the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The report provided a vivid, minute-by-minute account of how the nation's authorities struggled to comprehend and then react to the unprecedented events. The panel's public presentation included eerie audio of hijackers ordering passengers to remain seated as the planes headed toward their targets.

The commission's fundamental conclusion was that the nation was completely unprepared for hijackings whose goal was mass casualties, not demands and negotiation.

"On the morning of 9/11, the existing protocol was unsuited in every respect for what was about to happen," the report said. "What ensued was the hurried attempt to create an improvised defense by officials who had never encountered or trained against the situations they faced."

Military and aviation officials offered assurances in testimony before the commission that they are now better prepared for similar attacks, with close and constant communication between air controllers and the military, more fighter planes at the ready, and rules of engagement that allow for firing on hijacked planes.

But Benedict Sliney, manager of the FAA radar facility watching over New York City, testified that just a few weeks ago confusion over procedures delayed a decision on intercepting a suspicious plane speeding toward the city at low altitude until after the aircraft had passed New York.

Lee Hamilton, vice chairman of the commission, said after the hearing that he was skeptical of assurances that shortcomings had been addressed. "I can think of 10 things" that are still a concern, he told reporters.

At the White House yesterday, President Bush challenged an interim report that the commission issued a day earlier finding classified U.S. intelligence showed no evidence of a "collaborative relationship" between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.

"There was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida," Bush said. "This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al-Qaida.

"We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. For example, Iraqi intelligence agents met with (Osama) bin Laden, the head of al-Qaida, in the Sudan," Bush added.

The commission's report indicated an Iraqi intelligence agent met with bin Laden in Sudan in 1994 but noted that the Iraqi regime appears not have responded to the al-Qaida leader's requests for assistance.

During the final day of its public hearings, the commission yesterday focused on the government's performance on Sept. 11. The Federal Aviation Administration, in particular, came in for scathing criticism from several commission members.

Even after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon made clear the potential for disaster, the agency did not inform the nation's air defense that United Airlines Flight 93 also had been hijacked until 34 minutes after its headquarters was notified — a few minutes after the plane crashed, according to the panel's report. The Cleveland regional air traffic control center handling the flight had twice called the FAA's headquarters urging a fighter intercept without success.

Neither did the FAA alert the military to the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 77 — until just minutes before the plane slammed into the Pentagon, according to the report.

Likewise, the headquarters staff failed to act on a suggestion from the Boston regional control center for an immediate national alert to aircraft to secure their cockpits against intruders. Twelve minutes later, hijackers took over United 93, the final plane captured by terrorists.

"It just seems to me that those 12 critical minutes were a real opportunity to potentially do something about that fourth flight," said commission member Timothy Roemer, a former Indiana congressman. Another commissioner, former Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, declared that the FAA "blew it."

As Sept. 11 unfolded, it was often lower-level FAA employees who bypassed the chain of command and took the initiative to respond, according to the report.

Immediately after the Pentagon was struck, a manager at the national air traffic command center ordered the grounding of all commercial aircraft on his own authority while higher-ups were still debating such a move, the report said.

Regional air traffic controllers in Boston realized the first aircraft had been taken over when a hijacker, apparently Mohamed Atta, inadvertently broadcast an announcement meant for passengers.

"We have some planes. Just stay quiet, and you'll be OK. We are returning to the airport," the hijacker said.

As the hijacking was confirmed through further broadcasts, staff in the regional control center acted on their own to alert the regional air defense base, bypassing a cumbersome bureaucratic procedure requiring approval from the FAA's top officials.

Still, fighters were not able to intercept the hijacked aircraft before it hit the World Trade Center.

Nine minutes' notice was the most warning that the military received before any of the planes hit their targets on Sept. 11, according to the report.

In any case, FAA procedures at the time called for military aircraft merely to tail hijacked planes at a discreet distance, observe the plane, and assist in search and rescue missions if the airliner went down.

As the threat became clearer throughout the morning, confused communications continued to hinder the government's response. The FAA and the Pentagon had difficulty establishing a secure communications line. President Bush was reduced to using a cell phone to communicate with the White House from his motorcade in Florida, where he had been visiting a school.

Ultimately, after Secret Service agents rushed Cheney to the White House's underground command center, the vice president consulted Bush and gave an order to shoot down hijacked planes shortly after 10 a.m. — about the same time that United Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania.

When he received word the plane was down, Cheney assumed it had been attacked on his orders. A few minutes later, he authorized fighters to shoot down another suspicious aircraft five miles outside Washington; no shots were fired when that aircraft was later identified as a Medevac helicopter.

At 10:10 a.m., the mission commander controlling fighters over Washington explicitly instructed them that they were not allowed to shoot at aircraft over the Capitol.

Even after the vice presidential shoot-down order reached the regional air defense command at 10:31 a.m., commanders questioned the order. And they did not pass the instruction on to pilots circling above New York and Washington because they were unsure how they would react, the commission reported.

The commission's report endorsed the long-standing theory that an uprising of passengers helped bring down United Flight 93 before it could reach a target. The report noted that were it not for the passenger revolt, Flight 93 would have reached Washington no later than 10:23 a.m. — well before the authority to fire on it reached the regional command.

And the report noted that the fighter pilots were not aware of the hijackings at the time.

"I reverted to the Russian threat," said one of the two fighter pilots dispatched to guard Washington, according to the report. " ... I'm thinking cruise missile threat from the sea. You know you look down and see the Pentagon burning and I think the bastard snuck one by us."

The commission staff noted that NORAD officials maintain they would have intercepted the United flight and shot it down had it reached Washington.