NewsMax.com Wires
Tuesday, March 30, 2004

In addition, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have agreed to a single joint private session with all 10 commissioners, with one commission staff member present to take notes of the session, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales said in a letter to the panel.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan, on Air Force One with President Bush, said the commission had unanimously agreed to the administration's conditions for the testimony.

The decision was conditioned on the Bush administration receiving assurances in writing from the commission that such a step did not set a precedent and that the commission did not request "additional public testimony from any White House official, including Dr. Rice," Gonzales' letter said.

Subject to the conditions, the president will agree "to the commission's request for Dr. Rice to testify publicly regarding matters within the commission's statutory mandate," Gonzales' letter stated.

"The president recognizes the truly unique and extraordinary circumstances underlying the commission's responsibility to prepare a detailed report on the facts," he added.

Congressional leaders, he noted, have already stated that this would not be a new precedent.

The decision to have Rice testify is made in the wake of the publication of former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke's book, in which he charges that the Bush administration was slow to act against the threat of al-Qaida.

Rice offered a rebuttal on Sunday to criticism by Clarke that President Bill Clinton "did something, and President Bush did nothing" before Sept. 11 and that both "deserve a failing grade."

Rice responded: "I don't know what a sense of urgency, any greater than the one that we had, would have caused us to do differently."

Clarke testified before the commission last week.

© 2003 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Editor's note: