Sept 11 commission sets date for Rice appearance
US National security adviser Condoleezza Rice will go before the federal panel reviewing the September 11 attacks next Thursday, it has been announced.
She will attempt to rebut criticism that the Bush administration failed to grasp the gravity of the terrorism threat before the suicide hijackings.
She will be the only witness during a public hearing focusing on what officials in President Bill Clinton’s administration told the incoming administration of President George W Bush about al-Qaida and what the new administration did with the information.
“We really want to find out about the transition, what they learned, and what changes in policy the Bush administration decided and what focus there was on terrorism,” commission Chairman Thomas Kean said in an interview yesterday.
Ms Rice’s performance could have enormous implications for President Bush’s re-election campaign, which took a hit when former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke testified last week that the Bush administration did not consider al-Qaida an urgent threat despite his repeated warnings.
Ms Rice had resisted testifying publicly in favour of meeting privately with the commission, citing legal concerns.
But after mounting pressure, the Bush administration this week agreed to let her appear before the panel after getting assurances the move would not be seen as legal precedent that could force other presidential advisers before congressionally-appointed panels.
Later yesterday, the administration released fragments of a top-secret document finalised on September 4, 2001, that directed the Defence Department to draw up plans for attacking al-Qaida and the Taliban.
The National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD), normally classified, called on Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to plan for military options “against Taliban targets in Afghanistan, including leadership, command-control, air and air defence, ground forces, and logistics.”
The NSPD also called for plans “against al-Qaida and associated terrorist facilities in Afghanistan, including leadership, command-control-communications, training, and logistics facilities”.
The US State Department’s counterterrorism co-ordinator testified on Capitol Hill that Osama bin Laden’s organisation “has been put under catastrophic stress”.
Cofer Black told a House International Relations subcommittee that 70% of al-Qaida’s leadership is dead, under arrest or in detention.
“The majority or the rest of them essentially are primarily defensive, concerned primarily about their own personal security,” Mr Black said. “There’s a massive global hunt for them under way. It is relentless, 24 hours a day.”
Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan also played down the significance of a speech Ms Rice was scheduled to deliver on September 11, 2001, but never did due to the attacks.
It addressed “the threats and problems of today and the day after” and focused on missile defence, with little discussion of terrorism from Islamic radicals, according to The Washington Post, which obtained a copy.
“I think you need to look at the actions and concrete steps that we were taking to confront the threat on terrorism,” Mr McClellan said. “This administration doesn’t measure commitment based on one speech or one conference call or one meeting.”
