Bush, Clinton to Be Asked to Testify on 9/11

The federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks will soon ask President Bush, former President Clinton and their vice presidents to testify in public about possible warnings they might have received from U.S. intelligence sources before the attacks.

“We need them to testify,” former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, the bipartisan commission’s chairman, told the Record of Bergen County newspaper in a report published Thursday.

He said the panel would issue formal invitations within the next few weeks, although he conceded that all four men would probably decline to be questioned at a public forum.

However, Kean said their cooperation was crucial to the commission’s work, so he hoped they would at least consent to private interviews.

“They all have important pieces to tell us and important questions to answer, so they will all be getting an invitation, and we’re in contact already with their staffs in every case,” Kean said Wednesday on “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.”

Bush said in an NBC interview that he would “perhaps” submit to questions from the commission. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan would not say Thursday if Bush would testify publicly.

Clinton has said he would be willing to testify.

“My hope in the end is that the president will agree to meet with us,” commission Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton told “NewsHour.”

Kean, president of Drew University in Madison, said the commission also planned to seek public testimony from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, CIA Director George J. Tenet, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and their counterparts in the Clinton administration.