http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060926/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/rice_clinton;_ylt=AgIFmaN8zP31fqyAcDXdEK2s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-
WA****NGTON - New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton hit back at Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday as the political fighting escalated over
which president - Bill Clinton or George W. Bush - missed more
op****tunities
to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks.
Clinton, D-N.Y., took aim at President Bush and Rice over their roles in
2001 before the attacks, part of the growing argument touched off after
Bill
Clinton gave a combative interview on "Fox News Sunday" in which he
defended
his efforts to kill Osama bin Laden.
"I think my husband did a great job in demonstrating that Democrats are
not
going to take these attacks," Hillary Clinton said. "I'm certain that if
my
husband and his national security team had been shown a classified re****t
entitled 'Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside the United States' he
would
have taken it more seriously than history suggests it was taken by our
current president and his national security team."
The senator was referring to a classified brief given to Bush in August
2001, one that Democrats say showed the Bush administration did not do
enough to combat the growing threat from al-Qaida.
When the brief was delivered, Rice was Bush's national security adviser,
and
Clinton's response was clearly designed to implicate her in the same
criticisms that have been made of Bush.
Clinton's response came a day after Rice denied Bill Clinton's claim in
the
television interview that the Bush administration had not aggressively
pursued al-Qaida before the attacks of 2001.
"What we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the
Clinton administration did in the preceding years," Rice said during a
meeting with editors and re****ters at the New York Post. "The notion
somehow
for eight months the Bush administration sat there and didn't do that is
just flatly false, and I think the 9/11 commission understood that."
Rice also took exception to Clinton's statement that he "left a
comprehensive anti-terror strategy" for incoming officials when he left
office.
"We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al-Qaida," she told
the
newspaper, which is owned by News Corp., the company that owns Fox News
Channel.
The former president became furious during the television interview when
asked why he did not do more to fight al-Qaida.
"That's the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers
who are attacking me now," Clinton said in the interview. "They ridiculed
me
for trying. They had eight months to try. They did not try."
The interview has been the focus of much attention, earning the show its
best ratings in nearly three years.
Rice questioned the value of the dialogue.
"I think this is not a very fruitful discussion," she said. "We've been
through it. The 9/11 commission has turned over every rock, and we know
exactly what they said."
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