US 9/11 hearings political dynamite

By Adam Brookes BBC correspondent in Washington

Powell : By the time George Bush took office, it was too late to stop 9/11

The heavy hitters have been testifying in Washington, justifying the decisions they made while they were in office, explaining how it was that al-Qaeda's plotters slipped beneath America's security screen to launch the 9/11 attacks.

The commission investigating the 11 September attacks heard from Madeleine Albright and William Cohen who defended the Clinton administration's record on terrorism.

And it took testimony from Colin Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld, who insisted that President George W Bush decided as soon as he entered the White House to order up plans to counter al-Qaeda.

At root, the commission is looking for the key turning points over the last decade, the moments when it became apparent that al-Qaeda existed, that it was potentially a lethal force, and that it needed to be stopped. And why it wasn't.

Political dynamite

The commission is intended to be politically independent, but its findings will be politically highly sensitive.

If it decides the Clinton administration deserves blame for failing to stop al-Qaeda's growth during the 1990s, the Democrats will be damaged.

They will look weak on national security - a charge Republicans love to level at them.

Albright: No support for attack against al-Qaeda under Clinton's watch

But if the commission finds that the Bush administration did not take the terrorist threat seriously enough after it came to power, President Bush's image as a strong wartime leader who is tough on terrorism will be undermined. And that image is central to his re-election platform.

Commissioner Jamie S Gorelick said the commission was in a "very peculiar position".

She said the CIA was insisting that, back in the 1990s, early intelligence on al-Qaeda was good, but policy makers overruled direct action against the terrorist network.

But, she said, the commission was hearing from Clinton policy makers that there was never enough "actionable intelligence" to move against al-Qaeda.

Ms Albright and Mr Cohen argued that the options for attacking al-Qaeda on their watch were limited.

They argued that before 9/11, Congress would not have authorised - and the American people would not have accepted - an invasion of Afghanistan to dislodge al-Qaeda and dispose of Osama Bin Laden.

Failed diplomacy

But Colin Powell said that when the Bush administration came to power, early in 2001, it was already too late.

The suicide attackers were "already in this country, already had their instructions, were already burrowed in and were getting ready to commit the crimes that we saw on 9/11," said Mr Powell.

With statements like this, Colin Powell is effectively throwing the problem back on the Clinton administration.

The commission, in interim findings released on Tuesday, suggests that the failure to understand Afghanistan's role as a fertile bed in which al-Qaeda could grow does indeed go back a long time.

The commission said: "While Afghanistan became a sanctuary for al-Qaeda, the State Department's interest in Afghanistan remained limited."

"Initially after the Taliban's rise, some State diplomats were, as one official said to us, willing to 'give the Taliban a chance' because it might be able to bring stability to Afghanistan," the commission added.

The commission also finds that the diplomacy of two administrations was ineffective.

"From the spring of 1997 to September 2001 the U.S. government tried to persuade the Taliban to expel Bin Laden to a country where he could face justice and stop being a sanctuary for his organization. The efforts employed inducements, warnings, and sanctions. All these efforts failed."

Fireworks to come

Where diplomacy clearly was unable to quash Al-Qaeda, the role of intelligence and covert operations is also central to the commission's investigation.

I think the president ignored terrorism prior to 11 September Richard Clarke

The Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, testified that he "knew of no intelligence" that indicated that the 9/11 plotters intended to hijack aircraft and fly them into the twin towers and the Pentagon.

He, too, argued that it would have been impossible to build an international coalition to invade Afghanistan before 9/11.

And he said that even if Osama bin Laden had been captured or killed in the weeks before 9/11, it would not have stopped the attacks.

So no serious blows landed on the Bush administration today for its handling of the terrorist threat.

For real fireworks, watch the hearings on Wednesday.

Richard Clarke is due to testify. He is the former White House adviser on counterterrorism, a 30 year veteran of intelligence and security who served under four presidents.

Mr Clarke has published a book which excoriates the Bush administration for "ignoring" the terrorist threat from Al-Qaeda, and for launching an "irrelevant" war in Iraq. His testimony is going to be highly politically charged.