Rice to detail Bush efforts to fight al-Qaida before 9-11

WASHINGTON -- Condoleezza Rice will provide a detailed accounting of the Bush administration's anti-terror actions before the 2001 attacks but won't attempt to offer a blow-by-blow rebuttal to former counterterror adviser Richard Clarke when she goes before the Sept. 11 commission.

On the eve of Rice's testimony, the commission said it had requested about 1,000 pages of counterterror documents from the Clinton administration that Bush aides had not released due to "inadvertent" error or because they weren't originally requested by the panel.

Sean McCormack, spokesman for the National Security Council, said Rice planned a 20-minute opening statement to the bipartisan commission today that will seek to show the administration believed terrorism was a priority even before the attacks and worked to protect American interests.

"She will present the facts to the commission and the American people," McCormack said Wednesday.

She will "speak about our sorrow for those who lost loved ones on 9-11" while reminding the public "that those who are responsible for the acts are the terrorists themselves," White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said.

Rice won't seek to specifically counter Clarke's charges that the administration, and Rice in particular, did not consider al-Qaida an urgent priority before the attacks.

"This is the 9-11 commission, not the Dick Clarke commission," McCormack said.

Rice's sworn testimony to the 10-member panel before a nationally televised audience could have significant implications for Bush's re-election campaign, which relies to a great extent on his national security credentials.

Bartlett said that significance was being overstated.

"We have every level of confidence in our actions before 9-11 and particularly our actions afterward," he said. "We don't believe the stakes are as high as people are suggesting them to be."

Congress created panel, formally the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, in November 2002 to study the nation's preparedness before the attacks and the response afterward. It is supposed to recommend improvements to increase preparedness.

Lawyers for the commission reviewed 10,800 pages of classified documents from the Clinton administration this week after Bruce Lindsey, who was former President Clinton legal adviser, said officials didn't turn over all of Clinton's records to the panel.

Twelve documents were responsive to its request but weren't produced because of "inadvertent" error, the commission said. An additional 57 documents not originally requested were deemed relevant and were being requested, along with similar documents from the Bush administration. The commission did not characterize the nature of those documents.

"We estimate that more than 90 percent of the material had already been produced, was irrelevant to our work, or was duplicative," the commission said in a statement.

The commission has said the Clinton and Bush administrations made numerous missteps before the attacks, though no one on the panel has suggested any single change would have prevented the hijackings.

Rice's public testimony was assured only after Bush relented under public pressure and said she could go before the panel. He did so after receiving assurances other advisers would not be called.

Commissioners and relatives of Sept. 11 victims are eager to hear her.

"This is the first time a large number of American people will get a chance to be exposed to her and be exposed to her views," said Republican commissioner Jim Thompson, a former Illinois governor. "It's important to put her testimony on par with others and let the American people judge for themselves."

Patty Casazza of New Jersey, whose husband died in the World Trade Center, said she hopes Rice will explain what went wrong in national preparedness and detail efforts to protect the country in the future.

"Her testimony will either undermine our confidence in this administration or bolster it," she said.

The commissioners plan to ask Rice pointed questions about what outgoing Clinton administration officials told her about terrorism. Clarke says he gave Rice warnings in January 2001 but was repeatedly put off. Rice says Clarke merely presented a "set of ideas" that required a more comprehensive review.

Commissioners also want to know whether the administration acted reasonably in the summer of 2001 as intelligence warnings increasingly pointed to an impending terrorist attack. In July of that year, the government issued several advisories, including to aviation officials, but said intelligence was suggestive of an overseas attack.

"It's important to look as the alerts increased in the spring and summer of 2001, as the alarm bells were loudly clanging, as the CIA director was running with his hair on fire, what was the administration doing to respond?" said Timothy Roemer, a Democratic former congressman from Indiana.

Thompson said he is interested in clearing up discrepancies in statements between Clarke and Rice so the commission can have a clear factual accounting of the events leading up to Sept. 11.

"I'm not interested in tone or emphasis or gotcha games but what exactly were the priorities and what the Bush administration knew when it took office," he said.

Next week, the commission will hold a two-day hearing focusing on law enforcement and intelligence failures, with planned testimony from Attorney General John Ashcroft, former Attorney General Janet Reno, CIA Director George Tenet, FBI Director Robert Mueller and former FBI Director Louis Freeh.

The commission will have two more public hearings after that and plans to issue a final report in July.

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On the Net:

Sept. 11 commission: http://www.9-11commission.gov/