9/11 panel blasts Rice for refusing to speak

CRAWFORD, Texas -- White House allies and Republicans investigating the Sept. 11 attacks pressed Sunday to hear testimony from national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, with one commissioner calling her refusal a "political blunder of the first order."\nPresident Bush, spending a long weekend at his Texas ranch, gave no ground. He sent Rice to conduct another lengthy news interview to rebut fresh criticism about the way his administration has handled the threat of terrorism against the United States.\nSharpening his criticism, former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke said President Clinton was more aggressive than Bush in trying to confront al Qaeda, Osama bin-Laden's organization.\n"He did something, and President Bush did nothing prior to Sept. 11," Clarke told NBC's "Meet the Press."\n"I think they deserve a failing grade for what they did before Sept. 11," Clarke said of the Bush's administration. "They never got around to doing anything."\nClarke said a sweeping declassification of documents would prove the Bush administration neglected the threat of terrorism in the nine months leading up to the attacks.\nHe said he sought declassification of all six hours of his testimony before a congressional committee two years ago. Some Republicans have said testimony about Sept. 11 contradicts Clarke's current criticism.\nClarke said he also wanted Rice's previous interview before the independent Sept. 11 commission declassified, along with e-mails between him and Rice and other documents.\nThe material will prove Bush was "lackadaisical" about terrorism before the attacks, Clarke said, because "they're basically the same thing. And they wasted months when we could have had some action."\nAsked about Clarke's request for the declassification, Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "My bias will be to provide this information in an unclassified manner not only to the commission, but to the American people"