Al Qaeda's intention to carry out an election-year attack inside the United States has been confirmed by recent intelligence, but the threat information does not indicate any time, place or method of attack, senior administration officials said on Monday.

Terrorism command centers were activated in dozens of states and cities throughout the country on Tuesday because of fears of an election-year attack.

The plot was initially disclosed last August when the authorities ratcheted up the country's threat level in the three cities after warnings of an election-year attack on the United States.

Mr. Bush's election-year attack on environmentalism is an almost complete about-face from the position he took in 1988.

And the association failed to defeat any of the 10 senators and representatives, all strong advocates of firearms restrictions, whom it had singled out for election-year attacks.

The disclosures give Republicans fresh ammunition in their election-year attacks on the Clinton Administration's probity.

But with election-year attacks on the welfare system rising, the report is certain to touch off a debate about whether the law will ever produce results that are large enough to bring significant reductions to welfare rolls, which are now at record highs.

But if his presentation is intended in part to show that he has the empathy his father was accused of lacking, it also seeks to advance his party's election-year attacks on the Senate as obstructionist.

Mr. Bentsen and Mr. Rostenkowski said the election-year attacks had threatened the bipartisan consensus for free trade and the accord's prospects for eventual passage.

Now, he begins the second session of the 112th Congress on defense, his leadership under scrutiny and his party facing an election-year attack from the White House.