March 30, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - Former President Clinton will be on the hot seat over Osama bin Laden when he testifies before the 9/11 commission, panel member Bob Kerrey told The Post yesterday.
Kerrey, a former Democratic senator from Nebraska who is now president of the New School University in Manhattan, said he wants Clinton to explain why bin Laden's death threats against the U.S. went unanswered.
Kerrey also said he may ask Clinton to discuss whether he was so distracted by the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal that he was unable - or reluctant - to muster U.S. military forces for a campaign against the world's No. 1 terrorist.
"There's only one question I have for President Clinton," Kerrey told The Post. "Why didn't you consider Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda a strategic threat? Why when they declared war on us - give me your reason for not declaring war on them."
Clinton will appear before the committee soon, possibly as early as this week, and will testify behind closed doors.
Kerrey's questions for the former president come after CIA Director George Tenet last week recounted before the bipartisan 9/11 panel how bin Laden declared war on America in August 1996.
In 1998, bin Laden extended it with a fatwa declaring that all Muslims had a "religious duty" to kill Americans.
Kerrey said that failing to answer bin Laden's war chant allowed him to plot other attacks.
But the outspoken ex-senator also said the intelligence agencies failed by relaxing their vigilance.
"It's not just what you do on the offensive side. It's what you do on the defensive side," said Kerrey.
"With all the anecdotal and CIA evidence that hijacking planes and suicide was becoming the technology of choice for poorly funded military and terrorist groups, why was the FAA on the morning of Sept. 11 so surprised by the hijacking?" Kerrey asked. "We shouldn't have been surprised."
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