Here we go, reasons why Condi Rice should not be allowed to testify--the Administration will be tarred for "hiding" stuff. Just as I predicted:
news.yahoo.com
The White House has refused to provide the panel investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks with a speech national security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) was to deliver on that day touting missile defense as a priority rather than al Qaeda, sources said on Tuesday.
With Rice slated to testify publicly before the commission on Thursday, the commission submitted a last-minute request for access to Rice's aborted Sept. 11, 2001 address, sources close to the panel said.
But the White House has so far refused on the grounds that draft documents are confidential, the sources said.
A spokesman for the commission would neither confirm nor deny the request, or the administration's response.
The White House said it was cooperating with the investigation. "The White House is working with the commission to ensure that it has access to what it needs to do its job," White House spokesman Trent Duffy said.
Critics of the administration have seized on Rice's scrubbed speech to back up charges that President Bush (news - web sites) and his top advisers ignored an urgent al Qaeda threat before the Sept. 11 attacks.
The Washington Post, citing former U.S. officials, reported last week that the speech was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and contained no mention of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), or Islamic extremist groups.
Daniel Feldman, who was a director at the National Security Council under Bush's predecessor, Democrat Bill Clinton (news - web sites), said the excerpts appeared to "reflect the intellectual underpinnings for the administration's pre-9/11 neglect of counterterrorism."
"That's why it's critical that the White House release the full text of the speech and for the commission to ask Dr. Rice about the apparent inconsistencies," Feldman said.
A main area of questioning for Rice is expected to be claims by former U.S. counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke that Bush ignored the threat posed by al Qaeda before the Sept. 11 attacks and was fixated on Iraq (news - web sites).
The White House has rejected the assertion that Bush, Rice and others in the top echelons of power were more concerned about missile defense than terrorism.
"You're talking about one speech," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said last week. "I think you need to look at the actions and concrete steps that we were taking to confront the threat of terrorism."
The White House could still back down and provide the full speech to the panel. Bush has backed down in the past.
Responding to strong political pressure from both Republicans and Democrats, the White House made an abrupt about-face and agreed to allow Rice to testify publicly and under oath after previously insisting she only speak to the panel privately.
Last week, the White House agreed to allow the commission to review thousands of pages of foreign policy and counter-terrorism documents from the Clinton administration.
Under pressure, the White House let commission staff review the Clinton papers at the National Archives. A commission official said on Tuesday that staff members had completed their review and that the panel may request some of the documents. |
