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The Morning Grind / DayAhead |
Tough questions for Bush as 9/11 hearings begin
By Steve Turnham
CNN Washington Bureau
 |  Former antiterrorism chief Richard Clarke has said that President Bush ignored warnings about terrorist attacks before 9/11. The White House has denied the assertions. |
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Stay with CNN for ongoing coverage of the independent commission on the September 11, 2001, attacks. |
 VIDEO |
 CNN's Bill Hemmer talks with Richard Clarke about his assertions that Bush ignored the al Qaeda threat.
 CNN's Kelly Wallce on how John Kerry drew the attention of the president and FBI in the 1970s.
 CNN's Judy Woodruff on the campaign travel perks enjoyed by a president.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The independent commission investigating the September 11, 2001, attacks opens two days of politically charged hearings Tuesday on Capitol Hill.
They guarantee more difficult questions about whether President Bush failed to protect the United States from al Qaeda before 9/11 because, as former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke charges in the new book "Against All Enemies," he was obsessed with Saddam Hussein.
Clarke is set to testify Wednesday afternoon. But Republicans are already bashing him, hard.
"Well, he wasn't in the loop frankly on a lot of this stuff," sniffed Vice President Dick Cheney on Rush Limbaugh's radio show Monday.
Cheney suggested Clarke was passed over for a plum job by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. "I suppose he may have a grudge to bear there since he probably wanted a more prominent position than she was prepared to give him," Cheney said.
Sen. Don Nickles, R-Oklahoma said: "This is the guy that was head of the counterterrorism all during the Clinton administration. I think maybe there's a little revisionist history going on trying to say wait a minute, it wasn't really President Clinton's fault. It wasn't his fault when he really was the No. 1 antiterrorist person in the administration. They didn't do enough in the Clinton administration, period."
Kerry keeps quiet
Sen. John Kerry has the luxury of not having to get involved -- and so far he's kept a comfortable distance from the Clarke controversy. He spent part of Monday reading the relevant chapters, say his aides, but by nightfall, the senator still hadn't commented.
However, his allies weren't quite so coy.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, who serves on the Senate Armed Services panel's emerging threats subcommittee (and also happens to be a frequently mentioned Kerry vice presidential prospect) put out this statement: "You would have thought that after 9/11 the president would have finished the job in Afghanistan and kept the focus on capturing [Osama] bin Laden and his al Qaeda deputies. But he and his team gave top priority to their original plan to invade Iraq. ... It's becoming clearer and clearer that the president and members of his administration have misinformed the Congress and America."
The witness list for the two days of hearings reads like a who's who of national security luminaries from the last two administrations: Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, CIA Director George Tenet -- and from the Clinton years -- former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Defense Secretary William Cohen, ex-national security adviser Sandy Berger and Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar under Clinton and Bush.
One prominent member of the current team who will not be appearing: Clarke's old boss, Rice. The commission invited Rice to testify publicly at the hearing, but she has declined. The national security adviser has met with the panel in private, but aides have said she believes it would be a bad precedent for her to testify publicly. The White House has cited separation of powers concerns.
Seven Democratic senators, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, Robert Byrd, Edward Kennedy and Chuck Schumer, sent a letter to the president telling him that Rice should testify in public, given Clarke's allegations.
"While we acknowledge her efforts to work with the commission in private, we believe that these revelations demonstrate a need for Dr. Rice to appear publicly before the commission. She has been appearing in frequent television interviews to present her position on these issues," the senators' letter said.
"Her refusal to testify before the commission can only lead the American people to one conclusion: that she has something to hide and is not fully committed to finding the truth."
Of course, CNN and other networks plan heavy live coverage of the hearings in the Hart Senate Office Building. First up Tuesday morning: Albright and then Powell. After lunch, Cohen and Rumsfeld are set to give testimony. Rumsfeld in particular has been singled out in Clarke's book for pushing to bomb Iraq less than 24 hours after the twin towers fell.
Clarke also has said that Clinton didn't do enough to fight terrorism because he was distracted by the endless stream of scandals.
His accusations go right to the heart of what the commission is trying to establish.
"A central aspect of our commission's mission is counterterrorism policy: what options senior officials considered before September 11, 2001, and what choices they made," said Chairman Thomas Kean in a statement on the commission's Web site. "This is clearly one of the most important hearings the commission will hold."
