Everyone's slamming Rice - calling her testimony everything from "gobbledygook" and "time-wasting" "bureaucratic nonsense" to filibustering and evasive.
Rice: U.S. not on 'war footing' before 9/11
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By Mary MacVean and Jesus Sanchez
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
Published April 8, 2004, 4:26 PM CDT
WASHINGTON -- National security advisor Condoleezza Rice today conceded that the nation was "tragically" not ready to fight a war with terrorists prior to 9/11, but she defended the Bush administration's terrorism policies in a high-stakes appearance before the independent investigative panel.
The three-hour hearing was punctuated by some contentious moments as Rice responded to questions about the White House and her response to intelligence data about terrorist activity in the months leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In an intense exchange with a commission member, Rice said a crucial presidential briefing memo issued a month before the attacks -- titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" -- did not warn of a pending attack against New York or Washington, D.C., and lacked information that warranted immediate action.
Rice told the panel that steps to handle potential terrorist threats already had been taken before the Aug. 6 memo, including actions by the Federal Aviation Administration to warn of potential hijackings and increased FBI activity. She admitted being aware of a "terrorist spike" in activity in the summer of 2001.
"There were some frightening things" in the Aug. 6, 2001, memo, Rice said in response to a question by commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste, but there was "nothing actionable."
The exchange between Rice and Ben-Veniste was among a number of heated moments during the historic hearing in which Rice, after weeks of White House resistance, became the first sitting national security advisor to testify in public on Capitol Hill.
Some members of the audience, which included relatives of those killed in the attacks, broke out in applause as Ben-Veniste repeated his question to Rice as to whether she had told the president that there were Al Qaeda terrorist cells in the United States prior to the Aug. 6 memo. That information had been forwarded to Rice by the administration's former counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke.
"I really don't remember, commissioner, whether I discussed this with the president," Rice said.
Rice also consistently avoided agreeing to make public the classified Aug. 6 memo, which has been made available to the panel and was referred to several times during the proceedings. She did not directly reply, but referred to the "sensitivity" of presidential decision-making.
For the most part, the televised proceedings remained business-like.
"For more than 20 years, the terrorist threat gathered, and America's response across several administrations of both parties was insufficient," said Rice during her opening statement. "And, tragically, for all the language of war spoken before September 11th, this country simply was not on a war footing."
However, the Bush administration was aware of Al Qaeda and was working on a plan to eliminate the terrorist group in the months ahead of Sept 11. Rice said a "comprehensive strategy" to target and destroy Al Qaeda was approved by national security officials on Sept. 4.
"The strategy set as its goal the elimination of the Al Qaeda network," said Rice, before a hearing room jammed with onlookers and media. "It ordered the leadership of relevant U.S. departments and agencies to make the elimination of Al Qaeda a high priority and to use all aspects of our national power -- intelligence, financial, diplomatic and military -- to meet this" goal.
Despite such preparations, Rice said that there was no "silver bullet" that could have prevented the attacks that killed about 3,000 people in New York, at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.
"I've asked myself a thousand times what more we could have done" to prevent 9/11, Rice said in response to a question. If the administration had known of the threat, it "would have moved heaven and earth to try to stop it."
Today's testimony, which was broadcast live across television and radio networks, came as anti-American violence in Iraq has surged, with Americans facing the heaviest fighting since the fall of Baghdad a year ago.
Commissioner Bob Kerrey, a former Democratic senator from Nebraska, and Rice disagreed over how the administration responded to the attack on the Cole in Yemen in 2000 and security information the White House had in its possession during the summer of 2001.
They repeatedly interrupted each other, with Kerrey asking, "Please don't filibuster me," when Rice insisted on speaking.
"You knew Al Qaeda cells were in the United States," Kerry said. "You got to follow up."
"There were many things out of kilter structurally," Rice said.
Commissioner John Lehman, a Republican, asked about a series of situations and whether Rice knew of them before Sept. 11.
Rice said she did not know about potentially suspicious young men enrolled in American flight schools, about ineffective security on U.S. flights, about particular INS policies on visas, FAA policies on carrying knives on planes, and other issues.
"We really didn't have anybody trying to put together the issues" from all the departments until the Department of Homeland Security was formed, she responded.
Rice's testimony was seen perhaps as a bookend to that of Clarke and his striking apology during his appearance before the same commission. Clarke, former National Security Council counterterrorism director and a veteran of the Clinton and first Bush administrations, has said in his testimony and in a recent book that the Bush administration reacted slowly to his warning of an urgent terrorist threat.
Clarke reported directly to Rice and, as a result, she was responsible for what the president knew about terrorist threats from Clarke.
Commissioner Timothy J. Roemer asked why Clarke, whom he called a "consummate expert," did not brief the president. "Clarke never asked me to brief the president on counterterrorism," Rice said.
Roemer asked about a Sept. 4 memo from Clarke that described his frustrations over the lack of action by the military and CIA and included a reference to not wait until "hundreds of Americans lay dead in the streets" as a result of a terrorist attack.
Rice replied that "it would not be appropriate or correct" to characterize the memo as a warning of an attack.
She also denied that Clarke was pressured by the president to "twist the facts" to find a link between the Sept. 11 attacks and Iraq.
"It's not surprising that the president would say, 'What about Iraq?' given our hostile relationship with Iraq," Rice said. But, "I'm quite certain that the president never pushed anybody to twist the facts."
In contrast to an aggressive White House campaign to undermine Clarke, Rice's testimony about the counterterrorism expert was concise and without emotion. The administration did listen to Clarke and adopt some of his anti-Al Qaeda programs, Rice said. She said she met with him in July 2001 "to make sure that domestic agencies were aware of the heightened threat period and were taking appropriate steps to respond, even though we did not have specific threats to the homeland."
Rice said there were "systemic problems" that hindered monitoring of terrorist groups prior to the 9/11 attacks, including a lack of sharing of information between the FBI and the CIA. Greater cooperation between those two agencies since the attacks, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the adoption of the Patriot Act have aided counter-terrorist efforts, but more needs to be accomplished, she said.
"I really don't believe that all of work is done," she said.
After the hearing ended, commission Chairman Kean said he expected to follow up with additional questions for Rice in private.
Commission Vice Chairman Lee H. Hamilton said that the panel would press for the release of the Aug. 6 memo, and that the issue has been under discussion for weeks.
"All 10 commissioners agree that the Aug. 6 memo should be released," Hamilton said.
Rice had testified before the commission in February in private.
In the face of mounting public pressure, the Bush administration reluctantly agreed to let Rice testify in public and under oath before the panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
The White House had rejected previous requests for Rice to testify on the grounds of executive privilege, the legal concept that holds that while public officials such as the secretary of State must respond to a congressional summons, the president's private advisors do not. The concept ensures that the president receives unfettered advice without fear of public scrutiny.
Rice was allowed to testify in return for assurances that no additional summonses would be issued to White House staff and that Rice's appearance would not set a precedent for future national security advisors or other presidential staff.
Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney also have agreed to meet privately with the panel and be questioned at the same time.
The bipartisan commission is composed of five Democrats and five Republicans and was established by Congress in late 2002 to produce a comprehensive report on government failures leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks. The panel, composed largely of former government officials, has interviewed hundreds of witnesses and reviewed tens of thousands of documents.
The commission's report is scheduled to be completed by late July.
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