Bush, Cheney Meet With Sept. 11 Panel

WASHINGTON —  President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney met for more than three hours Thursday with the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, answering what Bush called “wide-ranging” questions about the administration’s response to the terrorist strikes and the intelligence warnings that preceded them.

In remarks after commission members left the White House grounds, Bush said he “answered every question they asked,” and that much of the discussion focused on “how to better protect America.” The chairman of the commission, Thomas H. Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, said in an interview that Bush was “forthcoming and candid” and that the session yielded valuable new information.

“We gained a lot of information -- a lot of information,” Kean said. “I think we filled in some gaps. We had questions that nobody could answer except the president as far as formation of [counterterrorism] policy, as far as the events of that day. He was the only one who could give us the definitive answers, and he did.”

Neither Bush nor members of the bipartisan panel would discuss details of the meeting, which took place in the Oval Office under strict White House requirements that the testimony not be given under oath and that the session neither be recorded nor transcribed.

Kean said there were no sharp exchanges Thursday, but he said there were pointed questions from commission members and firm responses by the president. “This is not a commission that holds back, and they didn’t hold back today,” Kean said. “There were a couple of questions where the president came right back and said, ‘I don’t agree with that.’ ”

But even as members dug for information from the president, they were also mindful of the historic nature of a committee of citizens questioning the president and vice president in the White House, Kean said.

It was also an encounter with significant stakes for the president. The commission’s final report is due in late July, a little more than three months before the presidential election. Thursday’s session represented Bush’s best chance to shape the outcome of a report that will render judgments on his administration’s handling of an issue -- counterterrorism -- that has defined his presidency.

David Gergen, who has advised Republican and Democratic candidates on crisis management, said Bush’s decision to relent and answer the commission’s questions makes it more likely the final report will be favorable to him.

“It was smart to do that. I think he’s making headway with those who had doubts, who thought he was hiding something,” Gergen said. He added that the most serious risk to the president was that the commission might conclude he was negligent prior to the Sept. 11 attacks.

“I don’t think the commission has a consensus on this,” he said. If the final report does not have a consensus that the president was negligent, he said, “I think people are going to move on and Iraq will be much more important” in the election.

Commissioner Bob Kerrey, a former Democratic senator from Nebraska, said the session with the president was helpful but did not alter his view of the administration’s counterterrorism efforts before the attacks. He has previously described the administration’s record as one of “inaction.”

“I didn’t get answers that changed my view in any way,” Kerrey said Thursday. He declined to elaborate.

Kerrey said the discussion “covered the whole range of issues that the commission has raised” with administration witnesses in hearings over the last few months. Perhaps most helpful, he said, was to learn “what the president was thinking that morning and his general state of mind” in the aftermath of the attacks. “He was very candid about that,” Kerrey said.

The commission’s work could help shape the U.S. intelligence community for years to come. The panel is considering an array of recommendations for reform. Bush recently said he was considering an overhaul of the nation’s spy agencies, and he warned Thursday that the nation is “still vulnerable to attack” by Al Qaeda.

“Al Qaeda is dangerous. Al Qaeda hates us. And we have to be correct 100% of the time in defending America, and they’ve got to be right once,” Bush said.

“But people need to know we’re working -- we, the government, at all levels are working long hours to protect America,” Bush added. “We’re doing the best we can. The best way to secure America, however, is to stay on the offensive and bring those people to justice before they harm America again. And that’s what we’re continuing to do.”

Though details of Thursday’s encounter were scarce, the agenda has been clear for some time.

In recent interviews before the Thursday session, commission members said they intended to press Bush to explain exactly what he had done to address the terrorist threat during the eight months he was in office before the attacks, a period during which there was a major jump in intelligence warning that Al Qaeda was planning “spectacular” strikes. A number of former administration and military officials, led by former counterterrorism advisor Richard Clarke, have accused Bush of ignoring the terrorist threat and being fixated on other issues, including Iraq, during that period.

Bush was asked about his response to a classified CIA briefing he received Aug. 6, 2001, that warned that Al Qaeda was “determined” to strike in the United States, said a commission member who asked not to be identified. Commission members have previously questioned why Bush remained on vacation near Crawford, Texas, for the rest of the month after getting that briefing and said they have seen little evidence of follow-up or subsequent effort to protect domestic targets.

Bush also faced questions on what he had been told about the Al Qaeda threat by departing Clinton administration officials, and why he had not ordered any response to Al Qaeda’s attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000, a commission member said.

Bush has staunchly defended his actions, and commission members said before Thursday’s session that they did not expect him to own up to any failings. Bush has repeatedly said that none of the intelligence he received, including the Aug. 6 president’s daily brief, contained information pointing to the Sept. 11 plot.

Though both sides stressed that Thursday’s encounter was “cordial” and constructive, the session was in many ways the culmination of a series of standoffs between the commission and a Bush administration that has often resisted the inquiry.

Bush rejected such suggestions in his comments in the Rose Garden after the session. “If we had something to hide, we wouldn’t have met with them in the first place,” Bush said.

Despite that language, Bush had long sought to avoid Thursday’s encounter. Until several weeks ago, Bush was refusing to meet with all 10 members of the commission, agreeing only to sit down with the chairman and vice chairman for one hour.

The White House decision to back down from that position last month was the latest in a series of reversals. The administration had opposed the creation of the commission before it became clear that it had overwhelming congressional support. More recently, it had opposed granting the panel a two-month extension, but relented under political pressure.

Even the circumstances of the meeting have been a significant issue for the White House, particularly because Bush and Cheney insisted on appearing together. Critics have charged that the White House made that a requirement so that Bush and Cheney would not run the risk of contradicting one another in separate sessions, and so that Cheney could coach Bush’s responses.

Bush said Thursday that was not the case, and members of the commission said that Bush did not turn to Cheney for guidance. “I don’t think he consulted him once,” Kean said, adding that about three-quarters of the questions were directed at the president.

Even so, political analysts said the decision that Bush and Cheney would appear jointly undercut the president’s desire to appear as a strong and independent leader.

“I think that was a mistake,” said Allan J. Lichtman, a presidential historian at American University. “I think it makes the president look weak. Can you imagine if his father said he couldn’t go to an important discussion of national security without Dan Quayle?”

Bush was also joined in the session by White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales and two members of the White House legal staff. The president said afterward that he was “never advised by my counsel not to answer” a question during the meeting.

The White House insisted on a host of other terms that have drawn criticism from Democrats on Capitol Hill and relatives of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. Thursday’s session could not be recorded or transcribed, even though the commission was allowed to record its separate interviews with former President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore this month.

Thursday’s meeting began promptly at 9:30 a.m. and ended about 12:40 p.m. EDT, nearly an hour longer than it had been expected to go. Bush and Cheney sat in armchairs in front of the fireplace at one end of the Oval Office, while commissioners were arrayed before them in a semi-circle on two yellow sofas and chairs.

Kean dismissed suggestions that the setting might have led commissioners to be too deferential. “Many have served elected office and most of them have spent quite a bit of time in that particular office,” Kean said.

Two members of the commission left the White House about an hour and 10 minutes before the meeting adjourned. The two members, Kerrey and vice chairman Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, both cited long-standing scheduling conflicts.

Although the historical precedents were not exact, experts said it appeared to be the fifth time a sitting president has been interviewed by an investigatory commission. The most recent precedent was when President Reagan was interviewed by the Tower Commission, which he had set up to investigate the Iran-Contra affair.

President Ford testified publicly to Congress about his decision to pardon his predecessor, President Nixon. Reaching further back into history, President Wilson answered questions about the Versailles Treaty of 1919, and President Lincoln in 1862 testified about the course of the Civil War.

Times staff writer Edwin Chen contributed to this report.