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N O T E B O O K
Quizzing Them on 9/11
Bush and Clinton may be asked to meet with the
independent commission investigating the terrorist
attacks
By TIMOTHY J. BURGER AND MATTHEW
COOPER
Sunday, Jul. 06, 2003
Will President
Bush be summoned before the independent commission investigating
9/11? It now appears very likely. John Lehman, Ronald Reagan's Navy
Secretary and one of five Republicans on the 10-member panel, told
TIME that he wants both President Bush and former President Clinton
to meet with the commission and discuss matters that could include
what their Administrations knew about the al-Qaeda terrorist
plots—and what was done to combat them—before the 9/11 attacks.
With the commission evenly split between Republicans and
Democrats, Lehman's position makes it all but certain that a
majority will support a request to interview Bush and Clinton. "I
don't think any commission should ever formally call a President to
testify," Lehman said, "but I think it is very much in the country's
interest—and in both President Clinton's and President Bush's
interest—to meet directly with the commissioners." Responded White
House press secretary Ari Fleischer: "The White House has been and
will continue to cooperate with the commission and its work is
important. I'm not going to speculate about an event that has not
even taken place."
Investigation fever is building on Capitol Hill. Richard Shelby,
former top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who
complained that federal agencies like the cia and countries like
Saudi Arabia hampered the congressional probe into the Sept. 11
attacks, has a new angle. Term limits forced the Alabama Republican
off the intelligence panel this year, but as new chairman of the
Senate Banking Committee, he is setting up hearings aimed at
terrorist funding. A Shelby aide says the hearings will have "the
Executive Branch telling the committee what they've done with the
Patriot Act," the post-9/11 law that expanded the government's
antiterror capabilities. The aide says the hearings' focus will
include the CIA and the governments of Saudi Arabia and Yemen—and
what they're doing to stanch the flow of terrorists' funds.
From the Jul. 14,
2003 issue of TIME magazine
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