Thursday, April 08, 2004


Yahoo! News - Rice Plans Unapologetic 9/11 Testimony
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Condoleezza Rice will present an unapologetic defense of President Bush before the 9-11 commission on Thursday in the highest profile national security testimony since the Iran-Contra affair nearly two decades ago, officials and analysts said.

Rice's 2-1/2 hours in the spotlight responds to damaging testimony by former White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke, who told the panel Bush ignored warnings about al Qaeda before the attacks and focused mistakenly on Iraq afterward.

Senior Bush administration officials said Rice would not rebut Clarke point-by-point in her sweeping review, however.

They also said they expected her to sympathize with 9/11 victims but stop short of emulating the widely publicized apology Clarke offered, at the outset of his own testimony two weeks ago, for government failings leading up to the attacks that killed about 3,000 people.

Dance, Condi, dance!