The revelation that the Immigration and Naturalization Service issued visas to two of the terrorists involved in the Sept. 11 attack outraged President Bush and added another scar to the embattled agency.

Yet the Bush administration - which seeks to contract out 425,00 federal civil service jobs in the next four years - conveniently failedto point out that the visas were processed and mailed by a private contractor, Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services.