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As expected, Rice challenged claims made by former counterterrorism chief Richard
Clarke in his recent book "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War On Terror"
and in his testimony before the panel last month. Clarke said the Bush
administration did not take seriously enough the possibility terrorists might
attack, choosing instead to focus on more traditional threats like long-range
missiles in countries like Russia and China. "I believe the Bush administration
in the first eight months considered terrorism an important issue, but not an
urgent issue," Clarke testified.  Clarke
also said the war on terror was derailed because the Bush administration focused
so heavily on invading Iraq -- a country the White House claimed had weapons of
mass destruction and ties to al-Qaida. To date, no such weapons have been found.
President
Bush "understood the threat, and he understood its importance" in advance
of the attacks, Rice told the panel. Rice said Clinton administration officials
briefed the president and his incoming team after the November 2000 election on
many national security issues, including counterterrorism and al-Qaida. "Because
of these briefings and because we had watched the rise of al-Qaida over the years,
we understood that the network posed a serious threat to the United States. We
wanted to ensure there was no respite in the fight against al-Qaida," Rice
said. "[President Bush] made clear to me that he did not want to respond
to al-Qaida one attack at a time. He told me he was 'tired of swatting flies',"
she added in a rejection of claims made last month by Clarke. The swatting
flies comment drew a response from former Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey, who noted
the administration made no military response to an attack on the USS Cole in 2000.
"Dr. Rice, we only swatted a fly once. ... How the hell could he (Bush)
be tired?" Kerrey asked. "I think it's only a figure of speech,"
she replied, adding that the president felt that the CIA was "going after
individual terrorists." Rice did not specifically apologize for the
failure to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks -- as Clarke did two weeks ago. Instead,
she said, "as an officer of government on duty that day, I will never forget
the sorrow and the anger I felt." Rice also discussed the administration's
response in the days after the 9/11 attacks and the steps that led to the decision
to take military action against Afghanistan as well as whether Iraq was a factor.
"There was a discussion of Iraq," Rice said of a post-9/11 meeting
at Camp David. "I think it was raised by (Defense Secretary) Don Rumsfeld.
It was pressed a bit by (Deputy Defense Secretary) Paul Wolfowitz. Given that
this was a global war on terror, should we look not just at Afghanistan, but should
we look at doing something against Iraq? There was a discussion of that,"
she said. | 
The
president's supporters hope Rice's testimony will put to rest charges the White
House ignored the threat of terrorists, like Osama bin Laden's group al-Qaida,
before Sept. 11. 
"The
whole story might have been different," Kean said on NBC News, "if we
had been able to put those people on the watch list of the airlines, the two who
were in the country; again, if we'd stopped some of these people at the borders;
if we had acted earlier on al-Qaida when al-Qaida was smaller and just getting
started."
But
after Clarke's explosive testimony, public pressure mounted and President Bush
reversed course.
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