Condi seeks another private meeting

[mburbank]

I guess the administration finally figured out secrecy was doing more damage than anything Rice could possibly say. As a proponent of transperancy, I say this is good no matter what comes of it. Oh, and for the record, I think the fact she's going to testify under oath is way more impirtant than the fact she's going to testify publicly.



By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - In a reversal, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice will testify in public under oath before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as long as the panel seeks no further public testimony from White House officials, the administration said Tuesday.


White House press secretary Scott McClellan, on Air Force One with President Bush , said the commission had unanimously agreed to the conditions.

The decision was conditioned on the Bush administration receiving assurances in writing from the commission that such a step does not set a precedent and that the commission does not request "additional public testimony from any White House official, including Dr. Rice," White House counsel Alberto Gonzales said in a letter to the panel.

Subject to the conditions, the president will agree "to the commission's request for Dr. Rice to testify publicly regarding matters within the commission's statutory mandate," Gonzales's letter stated.

"The president recognizes the truly unique and extraordinary circumstances underlying the commission's responsibility to prepare a detailed report on the facts," Gonzales added.

Congressional leaders, Gonzales noted, have already stated that this would not be a new precedent.

The decision to have Rice testify is made in the wake of the publication of former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke's book, in which he charges that the Bush administration was slow to act against the threat of al-Qaida.

Rice offered a rebuttal on Sunday to criticism by Clarke that President Clinton "did something, and President Bush did nothing" before Sept. 11 and that both "deserve a failing grade."

Rice responded: "I don't know what a sense of urgency — any greater than the one that we had — would have caused us to do differently."

Clarke testified before the commission last week.