Bush approves extension for 9/11 commission
Public hearings slated for next week
From Phil Hirschkorn
CNN
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(CNN) -- President Bush has formally approved a 60-day extension for an independent commission investigating the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to complete its work.
The president on Tuesday signed the bill passed by Congress into law, the White House said.
The extension grants the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States -- as the commission is officially known -- until July 26 to file its report and authorizes an additional $1 million in funding.
Last week, the president backed down from his one-hour time limit to submit to questions by the panel's chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, a Republican, and former Indiana Rep. Lee Hamilton, a Democrat.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president would "answer all the questions they raise."
Vice President Dick Cheney will also be questioned separately and privately by Kean and Hamilton.
Former President Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore will also meet privately with commissioners.
Next week, the commission will hold two days of public hearings in Washington featuring Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and their predecessors Madeleine Albright and William Cohen, respectively.
CIA Director George Tenet, former White House Counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke and former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger are also on the witness list.
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has declined to testify, but was interviewed privately by the commission last month.
Congress created the bipartisan, 10-member commission -- initially opposed by the Bush administration -- in November 2002 and originally imposed a May 27, 2004, deadline.
The commission, with a staff of nearly 70 and an initial budget of $14 million, recently asked Congress for more time.
It has received more than 2 million documents, including portions of the president's daily intelligence briefings, and interviewed more than 1,000 people, including more than 100 administration officials.
The commission is assigned to provide as complete an overview as possible of the intelligence and security lapses before al Qaeda hijackers killed nearly 3,000 people by crashing four jetliners into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, and outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and the government responses to the attack.
CNN's Catherine Berger and Jennifer Yuille contributed to this report
