RESEARCHER
W.House Looks for Rice Compromise with 9/11 Panel
Mon Mar 29 17:44:08 2004
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W.House Looks for Rice Compromise with 9/11 Panel
Mon Mar 29, 2004 03:50 PM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4691052§ion=news

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House looked for a deal on Monday with the Sept. 11, 2001, commission under which national security adviser Condoleezza Rice would appear in private before the panel, but it refused to budge in the face of demands she testify in public and under oath.

Under one proposal, Rice's testimony would be released to the public shortly after her appearance, but it was not immediately clear whether this would satisfy members of the bipartisan commission or quell Democrats' demands to hear openly from the key aide to President Bush.

Members of the independent panel investigating the hijacked airliner attacks have insisted that Rice give public testimony under oath, particularly in the wake of last week's bombshell charges by former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke that Bush did not move quickly enough against the al Qaeda threat.

The White House is refusing to let Rice testify publicly based on a long-standing position that presidential advisers who have not been confirmed by the U.S. Senate cannot give public testimony.

"Various options are being discussed," said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Some Republican supporters of Bush feel the White House strategy is flawed in the face of a potentially damaging election-year controversy that has allowed Democrats to portray Rice as willing to talk to the news media at every opportunity but unwilling to testify under oath.

"Nothing would be better, from my point of view, than to be able to testify. I would really like to do that. But there's an important principle involved here," Rice told CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday night.

As a way to try to limit the political damage, the Bush administration is working with the commission in search of a compromise, officials said.

Rice has asked to appear before the commission privately to give her response to some of the charges leveled by Clarke, who has been the subject of a fierce White House attempt to discredit him and his book, "Against All Enemies."

One option under consideration is to have Rice's private testimony quickly be made public, officials said. The commission is to meet on Tuesday in what will be its first collective opportunity to discuss Rice's request for another private session. Rice testified for about four hours Feb. 7 and she did not do it under oath, officials said.

The commission's Republican chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, said on Sunday his panel would continue to press for Rice to appear publicly and would ask to place her under oath.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "Right now we're just in the preliminary discussion stages with the commission."

At the same time, Republicans on Capitol Hill were seeking to have declassified some testimony Clarke gave two years ago to a joint congressional committee investigating the attacks, to compare it to what he has been saying now about how Bush handled the terrorism threat.

Clarke has said it is all right with him if the testimony is declassified, but that other memos and materials from Rice and other officials should also be released to show Bush failed to take aggressive action.

McClellan said it is up to congressional leaders to decide whether Clarke's testimony should be released.

"Our role would be to simply review the documents along with other appropriate agencies to determine what could be declassified," he said.

© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
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CONDI’S AMAZING SEPTEMBER 11TH STORY – FALSELY CLAIMED WHITE HOUSE HAD NO PRIOR WARNING OF HIJACKINGS

On May 16th, 2002, Rice said “I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon. [No one predicted] that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile,"[CBS News, 5/17/02]. But according to the bipartisan 9/11 commission report, “intelligence reports from December 1998 until the attacks said followers of bin Laden were planning to strike U.S. targets, hijack U.S. planes, and two individuals had successfully evaded checkpoints in a dry run at a New York airport,” [Reuters, 7/24/03]. More specifically, “White House officials acknowledged that U.S. intelligence officials informed President Bush weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks that bin Laden's terrorist network might try to hijack American planes.” [ABC News, 5/16/03]

CONDI’S AMAZING PEACE STORY – PUBLICLY CLAIMED TO SEEK PEACE, WHILE TELLING STATE DEPT. WAR PRE-DETERMINED
MUCH MORE:
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/07/25_condi.html

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