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Intimidation denied

Terrorism & Security

Rice steadfast in refusal to publicly testify
Pressure grows for open testimony from national security adviser

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice listens to President Bush during a press briefing at the White House last Tuesday.
MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 10:06 p.m. ET March 28, 2004WASHINGTON - As White House allies and Republicans investigating the Sept. 11 attacks pressed to hear open testimony from national security adviser Condoleezza Rice -- with one member of the 9/11 panel calling her refusal a “political blunder of the first order” -- Rice took to the prime-time airwaves Sunday night, renewing her claim of executive privilege.

“Nothing would be better, from my point of view, than to be able to testify,” Rice told Ed Bradley of CBS’s “60 Minutes.” “I would really like to do that. But there is an important principle involved here: It is a long-standing principle that sitting national security advisers do not testify before the Congress.”

Rice disputed a claim from former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke that President Bush attempted to intimidate Clarke into finding a connection between the attacks and the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.

"I have never seen the president say anything to people in an intimidating way," she said. "The president doesn't talk to his staff in an intimidating way to get them to produce evidence that is false."

Rice also took issue with claims that terrorism was not a priority for the administration -- claims made by Clarke, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. "I don't know what a sense of urgency would have caused us to do differently," Rice said.

Rice noted that before Sept. 11, "terrorist attacks were getting bolder, they were getting more imaginative, they were getting more daring. We were not aggressively going after them."

The policies of the current Bush administration were different, she suggested. "What they've been surprised by is that this time, there has been an all-out launching of war on them," Rice said. "... They are going to be defeated."

A 'safer' world
"The war on terrorism is a broad war, not a narrow war," Rice told Bradley. "Iraq is a big reason, or was, for the instability in the region, for threats against the United States. Saddam Hussein's regime was very dangerous."

‘ ... the best thing we can do for the future of this country is to focus on those who did this to us.’

With Saddam out of power, Rice said, "the world is a lot safer and the war on terrorism is well served."

When Bradley asked if she or the president were prepared to offer an apology to the families of victims of Sept. 11 -- like the dramatic mea culpa offered by Clarke last week in his testimony before the commission -- she demurred.

"The families have heard from this president -- and from me personally, in some cases -- how deeply sorry everyone is for the loss they endured," she said. "But the best thing we can do for the future of this country is to focus on those who did this to us."

The Bradley interview was the latest in which the embattled Rice was compelled to respond to fresh criticism on how the Bush administration has handled the threat of terrorism against the United States.

Sharpening his criticism on Sunday, Clarke said President Clinton was more aggressive than Bush in trying to confront al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden’s organization.

“He did something, and President Bush did nothing prior to September 11,” Clarke told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Clarke said a sweeping declassification of documents would prove that the Bush administration neglected the threat of terrorism in the nine months leading up to the attacks.

• Clarke on Bush pre-9/11
Clarke says he doesn’t think President Bush paid enough attention to al-Qaida before Sept. 11, 2001.
• Differences between Bush and Clinton?
Clarke says former President Clinton was more aggressive in confronting the terrorist threat than Bush was prior to 9/11

• Clarke’s motivation
Clarke insists the only motive he has for criticizing President Bush’s handling of Sept. 11 is to set the record straight.

Meet the Press

Powell also rejected Clarke’s charge that the incoming Bush administration devoted little attention to terrorism.

“This wasn’t a lack of interest, certainly on my part, and I think all of my colleagues in the administration,” Powell said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Seeking clarification
Members of the Sept. 11 commissioner made clear they will not relent in their pursuit of public testimony from Rice, but said they were not inclined to subpoena her.

The White House has declined to let her appear at the commission’s televised hearings, citing the constitutional principle of separation of powers.

“Condi Rice would be a superb witness. She is anxious to testify. The president would dearly love to have her testify,” Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters. “But the lawyers have concluded that to do so would alter the balance if we got into the practice of doing that.”

Related story
Newsweek: Inside the Sept. 11 probe
The administration has requested a second private session with Rice to clear up “a number of mischaracterizations” of her statements and positions about the attacks. She was interviewed by the panel behind closed doors on Feb. 7.

Rice was “very, very forthcoming in her first meeting with us,” said former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, a Republican named by Bush to lead the commission.

“But we do feel unanimously as a commission that she should testify in public. We feel it’s important to get her case out there. We recognize there are arguments having to do with separation of powers. We think in a tragedy of this magnitude that those kind of legal arguments are probably overridden,” Kean told “Fox News Sunday.”

Commissioner John Lehman, another Republican, said Rice “has nothing to hide, and yet this is creating the impression for honest Americans all over the country and people all over the world that the White House has something to hide, that Condi Rice has something to hide.”

“And if they do, we sure haven’t found it. There are no smoking guns. That’s what makes this so absurd. It’s a political blunder of the first order,” Lehman told ABC’s “This Week.”

FACT FILE Key excerpts

Excerpts from the hearings before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
• Former Counterterrorism Adviser Richard Clarke
• Former National Security Adviser Samuel Berger
• CIA Director George Tenet
• Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
• Former Defense Secretary William Cohen
• Secretary of State Colin Powell
• Commissioner and former Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb
• Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright

Former Counterterrorism Adviser Richard Clarke
"Your government failed you, those entrusted with protecting you failed you and I failed you."
"Although I continued to say it [terrorism] was an urgent problem, I don't think it was ever treated that way by the Bush administration before Sept. 11."

"The Bush administration saw terrorism policy as important but not urgent, prior to 9/11."

"By invading Iraq, George W. Bush has greatly undermined the war on terrorism."

Reuters
Former National Security Adviser Samuel Berger
"If there was any confusion down the ranks, it was never communicated to me nor to the president and if any additional authority had been requested I am convinced it would have been given immediately."

AP
CIA Director George Tenet
"It's coming. They are still going to try and do it, and we need to sort of -- men and women here who have lost their families have to know that we’ve got to do a hell of a lot better."

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
"Another attack on our people will be attempted. We can't know where or when, or by what technique. That reality drives those of us in government to ask the tough questions: When and how might that attack be attempted? And what will we need to have done today and every day before the attack to prepare for it and, if possible, prevent it?"
"The world of Sept. 10 is past. We've entered a new security environment, arguably the most dangerous the world has known. And if we're to continue to live as free people we cannot go back to thinking as the way the world thought on Sept. 10."

"I knew of no intelligence during the 6-plus months leading up to Sept. 11 that indicated terrorists would hijack commercial airliners, use them as missiles to fly into the Pentagon or the World Trade Center towers."

Getty Images
Former Defense Secretary William Cohen
"Even now after Sept. 11, it is far from clear that our society truly appreciates the gravity of the threat we face or is yet willing to do what is necessary to counter it. ... After all, it is commonly noted, there have been no attacks since 9/11. This is a dangerous delusion. The enemy is not only coming, he has been here. He is already amongst us."

AP
Secretary of State Colin Powell
"Anything we might have done against al-Qaida during this period, against Osama bin Laden, may or may not have any influence on these people who were already in the country, already had their instructions, had already burrowed in and were getting ready to commit the crimes that we saw on 9/11."
"Al-Qaida has tentacles in many different parts of the world. We've been very successful. We've eliminated a significant portion of the senior leadership that we knew about. This does not eliminate the entire organization, and it is not the only organization that means us ill."

MSNBC TV
Commissioner and former Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb
"I keep hearing the excuse we didn't have actionable intelligence. Well, what the hell does that say to al-Qaida? Basically, they knew -- beginning in 1993 it seems to me -- that there was going to be limited, if any, use of military and that they were relatively free to do whatever they wanted."

Reuters
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
"On the USS Cole (attack in Yemen), we were obviously prepared to respond, but we did not have definitive evidence that it really was committed by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. That evidence came after we were out of office. But had we had definitive evidence, I can assure you that we were prepared to act militarily."
"I reviewed it, and I am satisfied that we did what we could given the intelligence that we had and pre-9/11, if I might say. We have to keep being reminded of that, because there were whole questions ... that we overreacted, not the other way around."

Source: The Associated Press • Print this

A White House ally, Richard Perle, said, “I think she would be wise to testify.”

Perle, who resigned last month as an adviser to the Pentagon, said he recognized the constitutional concerns at issue. “Sometimes you have to set those aside because the circumstances require it,” he told CNN’s “Late Edition.” INTERACTIVES: 9/11 AND AFTER
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Rep. Chris Shays, a Connecticut Republican, said, “It’s been one of the stupidest things this White House has done. ... She has to testify.”

Subpoena unlikely
Kean said it was unlikely he would issue a subpoena to force her appearance.

“We’ve only got a certain life on this commission, and to get into a court battle over a subpoena we don’t think is really appropriate right now, or will it help us leading to our conclusion, so we can issue a report in July, which is now our mandate,” Kean said. “We are still going to press and still believe unanimously as a commission that we should hear from her in public.”

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has challenged Rice to appear publicly, accusing the White House of stonewalling the commission and of attempting “character assassination” against Clarke, who has served four U.S. presidents.

Full Text
9/11 Commission Staff Report
The staff of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States issued four statements March 23 and 24 on the U.S. approach to terrorism. The new report begins with Statement No. 5; statements 1 through 4 were part of a report issued last year on the details of the attacks themselves

Meanwhile, Rumsfeld, asked if Bush should apologize to the American people, said: “I think the president has recognized the failure that existed and the concern he has for those people and the fact that the government, our government, was there and that attack took place. I don’t know quite what else one would do.”

MSNBC.com's Michael E. Ross contributed to this report

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