Bush tells panel memo lacked data

President Bush told the September 11 commission yesterday in a closed-door meeting that a memo saying Osama bin Laden wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the United States did not provide enough intelligence for his administration to stop the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Mr. Bush explained that the intelligence did not specify a time or place for an attack, but if his administration had known more, it would have taken every action to thwart the al Qaeda terrorists.

One commission member told The Washington Times on the condition of anonymity that Mr. Bush was asked several questions in the three-hour Oval Office session about the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing, titled “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike In U.S.”

The commission said yesterday that Mr. Bush, who testified with Vice President Dick Cheney, was “forthcoming and candid.”

In addition, several commission members rebutted Democratic charges from before — and after — the meeting that Mr. Bush insisted on being with Mr. Cheney in order to have a coach at his side for hard questions.

“There was no huddling, no looking over his shoulder,” Republican panel member John Lehman said, noting that Mr. Bush never consulted with Mr. Cheney or White House Counsel Albert Gonzales before answering a question.

“He certainly did not need to look at any cheat sheets or look to anyone else,” he said.

Despite clamoring by several of the five Democrats on the commission that the president was not allotting enough time to answer questions, the meeting ran so long that two members — former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey and former Indiana Rep. Lee H. Hamilton — left early to attend previous commitments.

Mr. Hamilton left 40 minutes early because, as president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, he needed to introduce Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin before he spoke at the center.

Mr. Kerrey said in a statement that he left at the same time because he had a “previously scheduled meeting with Senator Pete Domenici on Capitol Hill.”

Mr. Lehman said the president was not miffed by the early departures.

“We all have day jobs,” Mr. Lehman said. “I don’t think anybody expected the session to go on as long as it did.”

After more than a week of heightened rhetoric and predictions that the question-and-answer session, like the public testimony of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, would be acrimonious and dramatic, both sides offered only praise and respect after the meeting.

“They had a lot of good questions,” Mr. Bush said of the 10 commission members, who had crowded around the president and vice president on couches and chairs near the Oval Office fireplace.

“I’m glad I did it. I’m glad I took the time. This is an important commission, and it’s important that they ask the questions they ask so that they can help make recommendations necessary to better protect our homeland,” he told reporters in the Rose Garden after the meeting with the panelists.

No commission member would answer specific questions about what Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney said. Mr. Kerrey told the Associated Press that some of Bush’s answers were “surprising” and “new,” but he declined to give details.

Mr. Bush also refused to divulge specific details of the discussions, saying merely that he and Mr. Cheney had “enjoyed” a “good conversation with the 9/11 commission” and answered “every question they asked.”

The president said he offered insight into “how I think and how I run the White House and how we deal with threats. … I wanted them to know how I set strategy.”

He sternly rebuked a reporter who asked whether Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney appeared jointly so they “could keep your stories straight.”

“First of all — look, if we had something to hide we wouldn’t have met with them in the first place. We answered all their questions,” Mr. Bush said. “The vice president answered a lot of their questions — answered all their questions.”

In response to another question, the president said he “was never advised by my counsel not to answer anything.”

After the meeting, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, repeated the Democratic implications that the joint meeting was fishy, saying, “The whole process would have been better served if the president had gone in alone and the vice president had gone in alone.”

“It really begs the question of why they had to go in hand in hand to this very important commission meeting which is so important to the American people,” she said.

Several commissioners said the meeting went well.

“On our side, everybody got to ask their questions, we got all the issues we wanted covered,” Mr. Lehman said. “The president answered all the questions fully, completely, I thought and it filled in a lot of blanks,” he said, adding that Mr. Bush did “95 percent of all the speaking.”

Mr. Kerrey agreed, calling the meeting “cordial and respectful.”

“The purpose was to give the president an opportunity to say in his own words what happened,” he said. “I think we did fulfill our mission.”

Republican commissioner James R. Thompson said Mr. Bush was “confident, determined, passionate, knowledgeable. He was very much in charge.”

“My sense was that we got a chance to ask all of the questions that we wanted. I asked three, some snuck in six or seven or eight. The president was not jumping up to leave. He even went back to [commissioner Richard] Ben-Veniste, saying, ’Richard, you got another one?’”

The panel, known formally as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, released a brief statement, saying, “The meeting was extraordinary.”

“The commission found the president and the vice president forthcoming and candid. The information they provided will be of great assistance to the commission as it completes its final report. We thank the president and the vice president for their continued cooperation with the commission,” the statement said.

The commission will hold several more meetings in May and June before releasing a final report no later than July 26.

The meeting was closed to all but the panel members, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, Mr. Gonzales and two other White House lawyers, Tom Monheim and Bryan Cunningham. The commission sent one aide to take notes, but no audio recording of the session was made and no stenographer transcribed the conversation. Nobody was under oath, as Miss Rice was earlier this month.

Mr. Lehman said there were “moments of humor. It was serious business in a relaxed manner, which helped the information flow.” He said Mr. Bush occasionally “teased” an unnamed commission member, who Mr. Lehman said took the ribbing good-naturedly.

• James G. Lakely contributed to this report.