Condoleezza Rice will appear before the Congress’ Sept. 11 panel today, and the national security adviser likely won’t place any blame for the attacks on her own government, as former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke did two weeks ago.
Good.
We find it slightly ridiculous that the hearings are taking place at all, because no amount of courtroom time is going to reverse the terrible terrorist attacks of 2001.
But the hearings are absolutely necessary to prevent such a horrid act of terrorism from happening again. If Rice, George W. Bush or anybody else in the government has any information that could lead to the future capture of terrorists or prevention of terrorist acts, the panel has done its job, and then some. That’s why Rice’s questioning should focus on prevention, not blame.
Underneath the surface of the hearings is another issue, one that hasn’t been broached because of its highly sensitive nature. It’s the issue of privacy. Rice is only testifying after much public response and uproar that followed her announcement that she wouldn’t testify.
Really, Rice doesn’t have to testify and shouldn’t be forced to do so. It’s a similar situation to attorney-client privilege. If President Bush is forced to divulge every conversation between himself and his advisers — especially his national security adviser — then national security itself could be lost. At a certain level, Bush needs to have privacy in his actions.
Some people would say that secrecy in the government is a bad thing. After all, when you allow a certain amount of secrecy, you produce events like Watergate that, thanks to the movie “All the President’s Men,” we know took years to crack because of the shroud of secrecy around Richard Nixon’s White House.
But secrecy can be a good thing if it helps protect our country. If Bush and Rice have a conversation about a new security measure being taken in the war on terrorism, or an ambush that can take out a terrorist leader, well, they shouldn’t have to hold a press conference about it.
Of course, Sept. 11 is a very, very special circumstance. So in this case, they’re all right in asking Rice to spill her beans. She still shouldn’t be forced to do it, but even she realizes her testimony will help national security instead of hurting it.
But it begs the question: Where do we draw the line? When is an event catastrophic enough to warrant a complete loss of privacy? In Watergate, Nixon’s closest advisors were never forced to testify. The highest person in his government to testify was presidential counsel John W. Dean. Of course, Watergate was far more mundane than Sept. 11. Nobody died.
So where is that line? What if President Bush went on a killing spree and shot 27 people? It’s comical, we know, but we don’t think it will happen. Would Rice, his closest advisor in the area of munitions, be forced to testify? Isn’t she essentially his lawyer?
We applaud Rice for taking the stand, so to speak, in the Sept. 11 hearings. Hopefully, some good will come of it in the long run. Hopefully her testimony and the testimony of the President will help to prevent any further terrorist attacks.
Hopefully it won’t be a slippery slope of privacy, leading to an eventual loss of all attorney-client privileges.