Rice to Testify Publicly to 9/11 Panel April 8

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice will testify publicly on April 8 before the Sept. 11, 2001, commission in an attempt to counter bombshell charges that President Bush did not make terrorism an urgent priority before 9/11.

Responding to heavy political pressure from both Republicans and Democrats, the White House made an abrupt about-face on Tuesday and agreed to allow Rice to testify publicly and under oath after insisting she only speak to the panel privately.

A key area of questioning for Rice is expected to be claims by former U.S. counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke that Bush ignored an urgent al Qaeda threat before the 9/11 attacks and was fixated on Iraq.

At the White House, which was battered by criticism at the refusal to let Rice testify, there was hope that the appearance by the well-spoken Rice would allow the administration to get the last word on Clarke and turn the page on the bad news of the past week.

Bush's re-election strategy rests a great deal on his performance in the war on terrorism and the White House is sensitive to any suggestion that he was not doing enough to try to prevent the attacks.

Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a visit to Berlin, told ZDF German television that the Bush administration "did as much as we could, knowing what we knew about the situation."

"We raised our threat levels. We warned our embassies. We warned our people around the world. We made sure our military was safe and were not exposed... We did everything we could to protect ourselves," Powell said.

The White House fought against an impression left in an article by The Washington Post that Bush, Rice and others in the top echelon of power were more concerned about missile defense than terrorism in the months before 9/11.

The Post published excerpts of a speech that Rice was to deliver on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, that the newspaper said was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of the Bush administration's national security.

"You're talking about one speech," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "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 would not reveal the entire text of the aborted speech, prompting a request from New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer that it be released.

Ivo Daalder, a foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institution who worked on Democratic President Bill Clinton's National Security Council, said the Bush administration would be hard-pressed to find any reference to al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden by any top officials in the months before Sept. 11.

The Rice speech, he said, "is just the final cherry on the pudding proving that what these people were concerned about was not al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden but madmen with missiles."

A new Los Angeles Times poll found 52 percent of Americans agreed with Clarke's charges that Bush failed to take the threat of terrorism seriously enough before 9/11.

Questions arose in Washington about contacts between the Bush administration and Republican commissioners as they prepared to grill Clarke about his charges last week.

People close to the commission said White House counsel Alberto Gonzales called commissioners Fred Fielding as well as James Thompson. The two commissioners went on to sharply criticize Clarke.

McClellan would not confirm the calls. He accused Rep. Henry Waxman, ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, of trying to "politicize" the commission's deliberations by asking the White House to detail Gonzales' conversations with the commissioners.

The Other Belly Girl

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Keep sucking up the media oxygen away from Kerry..

this is my roadmap for this campaign

1) suck up the media oxygen away from Kerry
2) run aggressive neagtive ads below the radar screen
3) carpet bombing these ads in battleground states
4) drives Kerry's negative sky high
5) repeat step one thru four
6) the next Bush bashing book will be Bob Woodward's book - again will parade thru CBS's 60 minutes
7) again, suck up the media oxygen
8) repeat step one thru four
9) by the time we enter May, swing voters in the swing states will scream, screaming mad, crying - ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
10) force these swing voters to turn off the whole campaign - FROM BOTH SIDES
11) any rebuttals from Kerry will NOT be heard by these voters
12) improve grassroot ground game, energize the base with red meat issues..

the rest will be history..

the game here is to drive Kerry's negatives skyhigh before the swing voters tune off the whole campaign. Get the swing voters so frustrated about the election that they would increase their chances of just sitting home on election or simply not willing to listen to another round of rebuttals from Kerry. Throw in the "negative" personality of Kerry, these swingers would want watch "Batman" cartoons on the cartoon network just to avoid all the political ads.

The negative books will do little harm to Bush's base nor it will add anything to the Kerry side. Meanwhile, the depletion of media oxygen around Kerry is exactly what is needed to drive his negatives skyhigh among swing voters. It does not matter if Bush is 50% negative for the swingers, the goal is to get Kerry just as negative. When these swingers are so screaming mad about both sides, all the campaigns, they could well just sit home and say "pox to both houses". Then the real decision will come from the ground game itself. All the talks, all the ads, all the debates will be just fluff..

Call me cynical, that's the kind of game I'd play to win for this election.

jmho.

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