Pacific Views

9/11 commission rejects White House restrictions.

The commission investigating the 9/11 attacks is heading for another confrontation with the White House. The commission is refusing to accept Dubya's conditions for interviews with him and VP Dick Cheney. The White House has been trying to limit these interviews to an hour apiece, and allow only the commission's chair and vice-chair to ask questions of Dubya.

The commission is also continuing to request that national security advisor Condoleezza Rice testify at a public hearing. So far, Rice has refused this request.

"We have held firm in saying that the conditions set by the president and vice president and Dr. Rice are not good enough," said Timothy J. Roemer, a former Indiana congressman who is one of five Democrats on the 10-member commission.

Mr. Roemer said that former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore had agreed to meet privately with the full bipartisan commission, and that Samuel R. Berger, Ms. Rice's predecessor, would testify in public.

"It's very important that we treat both the Bush and the Clinton administrations the same," he said.

We found this statement from Dubya's administration particularly interesting:

A spokesman for the National Security Council, Sean McCormack, said Tuesday that the White House believed it would be inappropriate for Ms. Rice to appear at a public hearing as a matter of legal precedent. "White House staff have not testified before legislative bodies," Mr. McCormack said. "This is not a matter of Dr. Rice's preferences."

Given that many of us can remember the Watergate hearings, during which one Nixon White House official after another testified before a Senate investigating committee, we think that McCormack's reasoning is lame even by the low standards of accuracy set by Dubya's administration.

Via NY Times.