Rice says Bush understood al Qaeda threat

Under contentious questioning, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice testified today “there was no silver bullet that could have prevented” the deadly terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and disputed suggestions that President Bush failed to focus on the threat of strikes in advance.

Bush “understood the threat, and he understood its importance,” she told a national commission investigating the worst terror attacks in the nation’s history.

In nearly three hours in the witness chair, Rice stoutly defended Bush when Democrats on the commission raised questions based on an Aug. 6 classified memo titled “Bin Laden determined to attack inside United States.”

Her appearance, televised nationally, also contained a series of implicit and explicit rebuttals to a series of politically damaging charges made two weeks ago by former terrorism aide Richard Clarke.

Unlike Clarke, Rice offered no apology for the failure to prevent the attacks. Instead, with relatives of the Sept. 11 victims inside the packed hearing room, she said, “as an officer of government on duty that day, I will never forget the sorrow and the anger I felt.”

White House officials said Bush and his wife Laura, at home on their Texas ranch, watched Rice’s appearance on television.

The appearance struck sparks on matters of form and substance.

Several Democrats urged Rice to keep her answers shorter, saying their time for questions was limited.

Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democratic member of the commission, first raised the issue of the classified memo, saying it reported that “preparations were being made consistent with hijackings within the United States.”

Rice described it differently. “It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States,” she said.

Thomas Kean, the commission’s Republican chairman, said at hearing’s end the commission has asked the White House to have to document declassified.

Relatives of the victims applauded at several points when former Sen. Bob Kerrey and others challenged Rice’s testimony. Her turn in the witness chair over, Bush’s aide shook hands with several of relatives, telling one she was sorry for her loss.

Rice said the president came into office determined to develop a “more robust” policy to combat al-Qaida. “He made clear to me that he did not want to respond to al-Qaida one attack at a time. He told me he was ‘tired of swatting flies’,” she told the commission delving into the attacks that killed nearly 3,000, destroyed the twin World Trade Center towers in New York and blasted a hole in the Pentagon.

But she also said, “Tragically, for all the language of war spoken before Sept. 11, this country simply was not on a war footing.”

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