TNR-Trade Imbalance(White House vs. The 9/11 Commission)

The New Republic-DAILY EXPRESS
Trade Imbalance
by Spencer Ackerman
Post date: 03.30.04

So much for what Condoleezza Rice termed the "important principle" of executive privilege. This morning, White House counsel Al Gonzalez informed the 9/11 Commission that Rice will testify in public and under oath before the Commission. This may appear, on the surface, to be a defeat for the White House. But Rice's testimony isn't unconditional. The administration has offered--and the Commission has apparently accepted--what is basically a trade: Rice will testify publicly, but only if no other White House official has to. And by no other White House official, Gonzalez means President Bush and Vice President Cheney. The White House is, in effect, trading a Rice appearance for a guarantee that the administration's two leading men won't be dragged down with her. Which makes this a reasonably good deal for the president and his team.

Gonzalez's letter contains six paragraphs of throat-clearing about why Rice's testimony shouldn't constitute a precedent for White House staff testifying before congressional bodies. It's not until the seventh paragraph that he gets down to business. "The Commission must agree in writing that it will not request additional public testimony from any White House official," he writes. "Other White House officials with information relevant to the Commission's inquiry do not come within the scope of the Commission's rationale for seeking public testimony from Dr. Rice. These officials will continue to provide the Commission with information through private meetings, briefings and documents, consistent with our previous practice."

The only White House officials "relevant to the Commission's inquiry" whom it has yet to interview are Bush and Cheney. What makes this request--which Gonzalez insists must be guaranteed "in writing"--so seemingly strange is that the Commission hasn't so much as entertained the notion that it would ask the president or vice president to put their hands on the Bible. Nor, for that matter, has it asked this of former President Clinton or former Vice President Gore. But Gonzalez seems to be thinking ahead--that is, anticipating the prospect that the Commission will receive (or has already received) information sufficiently at odds with official descriptions that it would want sworn appearances by Bush or Cheney. (One possible example: Rice misleadingly telling the public that President Bush requested an August 6, 2001 briefing on terrorist attacks in the United States--including airline hijackings--when in fact the CIA delivered it to him, unrequested.) As any good lawyer would, Gonzalez wants to foreclose on this prospect ahead of time. It's a smart move for the administration.

On another point, Bush appeared to be making an unprompted concession, but what he got in return may prove a net benefit to the White House. Bush was originally supposed to speak with the Commission's chairman, Tom Kean, and its vice chairman, Lee Hamilton. Now, he has agreed to submit to a private interview with all ten commissioners--something the panel never pressed for--but only as part of "one joint private session." And that session will take place with Cheney. For one thing, this means that the Commission won't be able to call Bush or Cheney back to answer follow-ups (though that was always a dicey proposition anyway). More importantly, the White House may not have been confident that Bush would be able to satisfy commissioners on his own, and decided that Bush would fare better with Cheney by his side. The two conditions the White House offered appear to be part of a strategy to protect Bush from the Commission: Cheney will help Bush in his private answers--and, just in case Bush flubs the interview anyway, the Commission won't be able to call either of them to a public session under oath.

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Spencer Ackerman is an assistant editor at TNR.
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The article is 5 paragraphs long. I left out the last paragraph. Ackerman ends his piece by saying that the WH lost big on whole this "episode" and Rice is a quasi-sacrificial lamb required to protect Bush and Cheney's chicken hawk(my adjective) asses.