WASHINGTON - In the shadows of Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites)'s testimony, former President Clinton (news - web sites) met privately with the Sept. 11 commission Thursday and discussed his terrorism policies and his decision not to retaliate against al-Qaida for the 2000 bombing of a Navy ship.
Commissioners described Clinton's testimony, which lasted more than three hours, as frank and informative.
A person familiar with the session said Clinton told the commission he did not order retaliatory military strikes after the bombing of the USS Cole (news - web sites) in the autumn of 2000 because he could not get "a clear, firm judgment of responsibility" from U.S. intelligence before he left office the following January.
It wasn't until after the Bush administration took power that U.S. intelligence concluded al-Qaida had sponsored the attack on the ship. Some commissioners have been critical of the decision not to launch a retaliatory military strike.
The person, who would speak only on condition of anonymity because Clinton's testimony delved into classified materials, also said the former president explained the rationale for many of the terror-fighting policies his administration instituted and the message his administration left behind to the incoming Bush administration.
Clinton "did not indicate anything fundamentally that he would have done differently" given what U.S. intelligence knew about Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and the al-Qaida threat, the person said.
Commission chairman Thomas Kean said Clinton told the commission he has wrestled with the issue of whether his administration could have done more. "He said he's going back in his mind over and over again about whether there was something more he could've done," Kean said.
The panel said it didn't plan to release specific details of the meeting, saying much of it involved classified information.
Commissioners said Clinton addressed big-picture policy issues.
"He was adamant about trying to work in a bipartisan way to fix the problems," said Democratic commissioner Timothy Roemer, a former U.S. representative from Indiana. "He was quite honest and frank."
John Lehman, a former Navy secretary under President Reagan, agreed.
"He did very well," Lehman told CNN. "He gave us a lot of very helpful insights into things that happened, policy approaches."
A spokesman for Clinton, Jim Kennedy, said the former president was pleased to talk to the commission "and believed it was a very constructive meeting."
Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites) consented in February to separate private interviews; Gore is set to meet the panel in coming weeks.
President Bush (news - web sites) and Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) also will meet privately with the full panel in a joint session in coming weeks. They initially restricted the interview to one hour with two panel members, but under mounting public pressure agreed last week to a joint session with no time constraints.