Rice, 9/11 panel have 'candid, productive' meeting
Some commissioners call on her to testify in public
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National security adviser Condoleezza Rice met with the commission for four hours Saturday.
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The independent commission reviewing the attacks of September 11, 2001 met with President Bush's national security adviser Saturday in an interview commissioners described as candid and productive.
Condoleezza Rice met with the commission privately for four hours Saturday at the White House to discuss what the administration could have done to prevent the attacks.
"It was a very useful interview, and I personally found Doctor Rice to be candid and forthcoming," said Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democratic commissioner and former Watergate prosecutor. "I think it would be useful for the public to hear from Doctor Rice."
Timothy Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, described the meeting as "productive."
But he added, "I strongly underscore and underline the need" to have Rice and Sandy Berger, national security adviser under former President Clinton, testify in public.
Neither Ben-Veniste nor Roemer would give details of what Rice said.
In May 2002, Rice said there had been no previous indication that terrorists were considering suicide hijackings. Reports later indicated that intelligence officials had considered the possibility of such strikes as recently as a month before the attacks.
The commission is still trying to get Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to testify, as well as Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore.
Commissioners have previously suggested they also want Cabinet members, as well as Rice, to testify in public hearings, but none of them have said whether they will do so.
"My feeling is that she should be testifying publicly and under oath," Mary Fetchet of New Canaan, Connecticut, a member of the commission's Family Steering Committee, said before Saturday's session.
"The American public should hear her explain how she's had conflicting statements with regard to what she knew and didn't know," said Fetchet, whose son, Brad, died in the attacks.
The September 11 panel -- known formally as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States -- was established by Congress to study the nation's preparedness before the attacks and its response afterward, and to make recommendations for guarding against similar incidents.
Commission members have complained that their work repeatedly has been delayed because of disputes with the administration over access to documents and witnesses.
The commission is expected to decide within a week whether to subpoena notes it took on classified presidential briefing papers, including an August 2001 memorandum that discusses the possibility of airline hijackings by al Qaeda terrorists. A four-member commission team reviewed the material in December but wasn't allowed to take notes to share with the other commissioners.
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