The commission looking into the September 11 terror attacks met yesterday with former President Bill Clinton in a 31/2-hour, closed-door session during which, panel members said, he expressed doubts about his administration’s response to terrorism.
“He was very frank. He gave us a lot of very helpful insight into things that happened [and his] policy approaches,” said Reagan-era Navy Secretary John Lehman, a member of the panel.
The meeting — though overshadowed by yesterday’s public testimony under oath by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice — touched on long-standing accusations that Mr. Clinton’s response to a series of attacks by Islamic terrorists made the United States appear weak and encouraged al Qaeda to believe it could strike America.
“We did go into some of the obvious criticisms of the eight years under his tenure,” Mr. Lehman told CNN yesterday afternoon.
He added that the former president is now second-guessing some of the decisions, including what Mr. Lehman characterized as “wrong decisions” made at that time.
“He was very frank, very open about talking about some decisions where, had he known some things, [they] might have gone one way or another way,” Mr. Lehman said.
The commission — formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States — has already reported there were several occasions after the attacks on two U.S. embassies in East Africa when senior officials might have had an opportunity to order terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden to be killed.
On four occasions in 1998-99, commission investigators said at a hearing last month, officials — including counterterrorism specialist Richard A. Clarke, CIA Director George Tenet and National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger — opted not to use cruise missiles to strike locations where bin Laden was thought to be.
Officials said their information was not conclusive enough, and the number of civilians who might be killed was unacceptably high.
Commissioners said they also asked Mr. Clinton about policy matters. “We asked him a host of big questions, big policy recommendations,” said former Rep. Tim Roemer, an Indiana Democrat who also sits on the commission.
The former president’s office said that Mr. Clinton was pleased to have had the opportunity to meet the panel “and believed it was a very constructive meeting.”
Commissioner Jamie Gorelick, who was Mr. Clinton’s deputy attorney general, told CNN that the former president was very voluble.
“He even answered questions we didn’t ask,” she joked.
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