A New Window on the War Room

A New Window on the War Room
Condi Rice heads for the Hill as the battle over blame for 9/11 is joined
David Bohrer / The White House
By Michael Isikoff - NewsweekApril 12 issue

The grainy photograph rolled off the fax machine at the White House counsel's office last Monday morning, along with a scribbled note that smacked of blackmail. If the White House didn't allow national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice to testify in public before the 9/11 commission, it read, "This will be all over Washington in 24 hours." The photo, from a Nov. 22, 1945, New York Times story, showed Adm. William D. Leahy, chief of staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, appearing before a special congressional panel investigating the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. PRESIDENT'S CHIEF OF STAFF TESTIFIES read the headline over the snapshot of Leahy's very public testimony. The point was clear: the White House could no longer get away with the claim that Rice's appearance would be a profound breach of precedent.

The fax was the work of Philip Zelikow, the commission's executive director, a University of Virginia historian who had been poring over records of the Pearl Harbor inquiries for months. Those probes, Zelikow believes, are the clearest blueprint for the 9/11 panel's work. "This is what happens when you hire historians," joked commission chairman Thomas Kean.

Asking the Hard Questions

A White House aide says it is "fatuous" to say the Leahy photo forced the White House to capitulate. But after battling with the panel for nearly a year over documents and testimony, the White House finally relented and said Rice would testify publicly under oath. As part of the deal, President Bush and Vice President Cheney, who until last week insisted they would testify only before the panel's leaders, also agreed to appear. Now they will give unsworn testimony, together, before the full panel. Bush realized the controversy was a costly distraction that needed to end, and fast. GOP leaders on Capitol Hill and the president's political aides, says one commissioner, "just wanted this to go away."

That isn't likely to happen. While the commission wrestles with Bush lawyers over the release of some 9,000 pages of Clinton-era documents, Rice is set to testify Thursday. She'll try to defend herself against Richard Clarke's claims that she didn't put a high priority on terrorism. Next week, the panel is slated to hear from Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Janet Reno, and two former FBI directors, Louis Freeh and his interim successor, Thomas Pickard. People close to the commission are expecting a bitter confrontation between Pickard and Ashcroft. Pickard is expected to scorch Ashcroft for showing little interest in terrorism before 9/11, NEWSWEEK has learned. The A.G. denied proposed funding increases for FBI counterterrorism programs. Ashcroft is expected to say that Pickard could have shifted resources if he thought it was so important. Commissioners will ask both of them why bin Laden family members were flown out of the country after the attacks.

The FBI lapses have led some commissioners to consider recommending an overhaul of U.S. intelligence in their final report, due July 26. That could include a proposal to break up the FBI and create a new domestic spy agency, similar to Britain's MI5, to hunt terrorists inside the country. "This is perhaps our most difficult choice," Kean told NEWSWEEK. FBI Director Robert Mueller is fighting the idea. A possible compromise: a semi-independent antiterrorist unit inside the FBI. But any such proposals are for the future. For now, the commission is still busy hashing out what went wrong in the past.
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With Daniel Klaidman and Tamara Lipper