9/11 panel to ask Bush, Clinton for public testimony
Kean: 'We need them to testify'
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President Bush said recently that "perhaps" he would submit to questions from the 9/11 panel.
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MADISON, New Jersey (AP) -- The federal commission investigating the September 11, 2001 attacks will soon ask President Bush, former President Clinton and their vice presidents to testify in public about possible warnings they might have received from U.S. intelligence sources before the attacks.
"We need them to testify," former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, the bipartisan commission's chairman, told The Record of Bergen County in a story published Thursday. He said the panel would issue formal invitations within the next few weeks, although he conceded that all four men would probably decline to be questioned at a public forum.
However, Kean said their cooperation was crucial to the commission's work, so he hoped they would at least consent to private interviews with the panel.
"They all have important pieces to tell us and important questions to answer, so they will all be getting an invitation and we're in contact already with their staffs in every case," Kean said Wednesday on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer."
Bush said in an NBC interview broadcast this week that he would "perhaps" submit to questions from the commission.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan on Thursday would not say if Bush would testify publicly.
"These are issues that we continue to discuss with the commission in a spirit of cooperation," McClellan told reporters traveling with Bush to Harrisburg, Pa. "We will talk to the commission about these issues."
Clinton has previously said he would be willing to testify.
Commission vice chairman Lee Hamilton told the "NewsHour," "My hope in the end that the president will agree that to meet with us and answer whatever questions we have."
Kean, who is now president of Drew University in Madison, said the commission also plans to seek public testimony from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, CIA Director George Tenet, Attorney General John Ashcroft and their counterparts in the Clinton administration.
Copyright 2004 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
