New to the Job, Rice Focused on More Traditional Fears

[jbfam4]

April 5, 2004
New to the Job, Rice Focused on More Traditional Fears

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/politics/05COND.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
By DOUGLAS JEHL and DAVID E. SANGER


WASHINGTON, April 4 — Condoleezza Rice was, perhaps, in the best position to galvanize the government to prevent terrorist attacks before Sept. 11, 2001. As national security adviser she sat at the nexus of the intelligence, foreign policy, defense and law enforcement agencies who shared responsibility for counterterrorism.

That is why, as the White House scrambles to defend against charges that President Bush and his advisers paid too little heed before Sept. 11 to potential for terror attacks on American soil, Ms. Rice finds herself at the center of the storm.

On Thursday, testifying publicly in front of the commission examining the attacks, she will be pressed to square her account of events — one of heightened alerts and the development of new policies to oust Al Qaeda and the Taliban — with accusations by Richard A. Clarke, who served under her as counterterrorism adviser, that the new administration paid far less attention to these threats than President Clinton's did. Her task seemed to become even more difficult on Sunday, when the leaders of the commission said that it was likely to conclude that the Sept. 11 attacks were preventable.

Senior White House aides concede that Mr. Bush has a huge amount riding on how Ms. Rice does. "She's the one who can make our most forceful case," one close colleague of Ms. Rice said this weekend. "They don't call her the Warrior Princess for nothing," a reference to the moniker her staff gave her after the Sept. 11 attacks.

But a review of the record, from testimony and interviews, suggests that Ms. Rice faces a daunting challenge because her own focus until Sept. 11 was usually fixed on matters other than terrorism, for reasons that had to do with her own background, her management style and the unusually close, personal nature of her relationship with Mr. Bush.

[TinaTyson]

1. Breaking: "With Head Up Her Rump It Was Hard To See"

[meti57b]

2. It's time for her to do the right thing and resign in disgrace.

[zbdent]

3. Shhh, don't give away Wednesday's top news story

on a Monday!