Ms. Rice's Testimony
washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, March 30, 2004; Page A18
PRESIDENT BUSH is within his legal rights in preventing national security adviser Condoleezza Rice from testifying publicly before the Sept. 11 commission. Precedent is on his side. And we see no reason to credit Democratic insinuations that Ms. Rice has something to hide, given that she spent four hours answering the commission's questions in closed session and has offered to answer more. Yet Mr. Bush is making a mistake when he blocks her public testimony. The Sept. 11 attacks were unprecedented, and it is reasonable to override some of the normal ways of doing business as the nation seeks to understand why they took place and how future attacks can be prevented. The members of the bipartisan commission have unanimously requested that Ms. Rice testify publicly.
It is long-standing practice that key presidential advisers do not testify before congressional bodies on policy matters. Cabinet officers are confirmed by the Senate and are therefore partly accountable to Congress; the president's staff is different. And the president has an interest in receiving honest, freewheeling advice from people who aren't worrying about being hauled up to testify. History offers only a few precedents for open public testimony by presidential advisers on policy questions, and none by anyone in Ms. Rice's job. Presidents have been consistent on this point. Executive confidentiality may never seem, at any given moment, as pressing a public interest as openness about a topical controversy. Yet allowing the assumption of confidentiality to erode carries a price.
Richard A. Clarke's book criticizing the administration, while stimulating an important public debate, brings this concern into sharp relief. If career national security officials write tell-all accounts while the presidents they serve not only remain in office but are facing reelection, decision-making is bound to suffer. Presidents are more likely to surround themselves with political loyalists, depriving themselves of diverse ideas and valuable experience. Staff members are more likely to censor themselves for fear of later exposure.
But Mr. Bush signed the legislation that created the Sept. 11 commission and assigned it the critical task of determining what went wrong and what needs changing. It differs from a congressional committee, and the administration has recognized as much, providing materials that it would never provide to a congressional investigation. Why is the principle in Ms. Rice's public testimony more sacred than, say, the confidentiality of the president's daily intelligence briefings -- to which commissioners have had access? The White House only makes itself look silly when, even as it insists Ms. Rice cannot testify publicly, it sends her out on talk shows to respond to Mr. Clarke's allegations.
Now the administration is reportedly seeking an arrangement under which some of Ms. Rice's answers from a closed session could be released. That might be better than nothing, but Ms. Rice is a key player in this piece of history. Her full testimony should be part of the commission's public record.
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