It seems that Condoleeze Rice, who has already spoken to the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon and World Trade Center behind closed doors, would like to do so again. And she refuses to do so under oath. Her excuse is that she needs to protect the President's "Executive Privilege".
Sure.
What about all of the other Cabinet-level and below officials and aides that advise the President that have testified before Congress over the past two decades? What about President Clinton? If Secret Service Agents can be forced to testify regarding his activities, surely Dr. Rice can testify under oath regarding President Bush's knowledge of al Qaeda.
Dr. Rice needs to testify under oath, in the light of day. She needs to do so because she has spent so much time slandering Richard Clarke on television. She needs to do so because she has already had one chance with the commission behind closed doors. The American people and the President's critics must have the opportunity to judge for themselves whether her testimony is just more or the same made up garbage.
It is time for Condoleeza Rice to come clean regarding the advice she gave the President and the content of the briefings he receieved vis a vis al Qaeda. Richard Clarke is not the first person to come forward and say that she was uninterested in al Qaeda and terrorism. Former Clinton NSA Sandy Berger has indicated this as well.
The other thing that needs to come out of this is the release of the President's Daily Brief for the first nine months of his Presidency. This should be given, in unaltered form, to the commission so it can begin the task of evaulating what information regarding al Qaeda was available to the nation's top officials.
There's no other way to get to the bottom of this mess.
Posted by Chris at March 25, 2004 04:02 PM