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03/30/2004 Archived Entry: "Push comes to shove."
Push comes to shove.
Can the White House continue to try running out the clock on the 9/11 Commission?
The chairman and vice chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks said on Monday that they would ask Condoleezza Rice to testify under oath in any future questioning because of discrepancies between her statements and those made in sworn testimony by President Bush's former counterterrorism chief."I would like to have her testimony under the penalty of perjury," said the commission's chairman, Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, in comments that reflected the panel's exasperation with the White House and Ms. Rice, the president's national security adviser.
[...]
The decision to restrict her availability has led Democrats and other critics to accuse the White House of trying to hide embarrassing information about its failure to pre-empt the Sept. 11 attacks.
"I think she should be under the same penalty as Richard Clarke," Mr. Kean said in an interview, referring to Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism adviser who testified to the panel last week that the Bush administration had not paid sufficient attention to the threat from Al Qaeda before Sept. 11, 2001.
[...]
Ms. Rice has given a flurry of interviews to news organizations over the last week in which she has challenged Mr. Clarke's truthfulness, including his depiction of her as slow-footed in responding to intelligence warnings throughout 2001 that Al Qaeda was plotting a catastrophic attack on the United States.
Members of the commission, Democrats and Republicans alike, say they are angered by her interviews. They say the White House has made a major political blunder by continuing to assert executive privilege in blocking public testimony by Ms. Rice while continuing to use her as the principal public spokeswoman in defending the Bush's administration's actions before Sept. 11.
"I find it reprehensible that the White House is making her the fall guy for this legalistic position," said John F. Lehman, Navy secretary in the Reagan administration and a Republican member of the commission.
It's pretty obvious that this impasse will threaten whether the Commission will get all the information they need, and I figure that if the commission insists on Rice swearing in, the White House will choose to litigate. This article says there is no real reason Rice cannot testify, but that will not matter as the White House will most likely argue an invalid legal point. In their view, all they have to do is slow-walk it for the next two months, and Condi won't have to appear before the commission at all.
Cynical? Yep. But remember who we're talking about here - the Kings of Cynicism.
Update: Condi will testify under oath. With conditions. More later.
Replies: 6 people speak up
We win...I hope. Per NYT circa 9 a.m. CST--
NEWS ALERT
Rice to Testify in Public Under Oath for 9/11 Panel, Bush Administration Official Says (9:54 AM ET)
No link to details yet.
Posted by Xan @ 03/30/2004 10:09 AM NY
"With conditions" seems to be "and we promise not to do it again".
I hope the 9/11 Commission thinks long and hard about that one. There are others whose testimony could be useful to reach the truth.
Posted by andante @ 03/30/2004 10:21 AM NY
"...as long as the panel seeks no further public testimony from White House officials..." ???
Well, that pretty much says Condoleeza is the designated scapegoat... shoot her full of holes and any salient 'facts' that might slip out, we'll just spin away.
Posted by lonestar @ 03/30/2004 11:12 AM NY
Yes, those conditions do seem to be a funny definition of unprecedented cooperation
Posted by George Johnston @ 03/30/2004 02:53 PM NY
Condi is going to impress everyone, If George and John were as intelligent as her, we could see some very good debates. However if we were a little more progressive as a nation we would have our first woman president
Posted by Robin Hacker @ 03/30/2004 08:00 PM NY
There would be nothing progressive about ConJob Rice becoming President. She is as big a liar as Bush and as big a thief as Cheney.
Posted by George Johnston @ 03/30/2004 09:24 PM NY
