NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, 2 April 2004 — The Federal Commission investigating Sept. 11 atrocities seeks to know why the Bush administration failed to act on intelligence reports received the summer before Sept. 11 indicating terrorists planned an aviation attack.

Former New Jersey Republican Gov. Thomas Kean, a Bush appointee, implied that heads would roll: “There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed.” Last week, Rice’s former deputy, Richard Clarke, held her personally responsible: “If Condi Rice had been doing her job and...if she had a hands-on attitude to being national security advisor,” the Bush Administration could have prevented Sept. 11.

Conservatives suggested Clarke was miffed at being ousted by a young black woman.

But Rice’s comment in May, 2000 that no one “could have predicted that they (Al-Qaeda) would try to use a...hijacked plane as a missile,” provoked the commission’s interest, given what turned out to be years of intelligence reports indicating Al-Qaeda’s interest in sponsoring airplane attacks. One Republican commission member termed Rice’s claim an “unfortunate comment...that was, of course a wrong-footed statement on its face.”

Rice admits she saw intelligence reports but claims these inadequately communicated the danger.

But Clarke unequivocally states that Rice and her team of seven political advisors (whom she calls her “Vulcans”) failed to grasp the reports’ importance. And Clarke’s accusation has substance. Rice and her “Vulcans” are Cold War specialists — a now-defunct area, obsessed with China and Russia. Clarke marveled: “It was as though they were preserved in amber.”

Rice’s glowing bios, meticulously prepared by White House spinners, relentlessly promote her supposed intellectual prowess and state that she has co-authored two books. But the one book Rice wrote by herself, The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army, 1948-1983: Uncertain Allegiance, published 1984, reveals she is incapable of evaluating intelligence.

Reviewer Joseph Kalvoda hits hard. Her book is based entirely on “secondary works,” contains no original research, and fails “to sift facts from propaganda and valid information from disinformation or misinformation.” Kalvoda claims Rice “passes judgments and expresses opinions without adequate knowledge of facts.” She erroneously relies on propaganda writings that she could have cross-checked and discovered to be fake materials disseminated by then-communist agents.

One wonders how Rice could ever be considered an Eastern European expert: “Rice’s generalizations reflect (her) lack of knowledge about history and the nationality problem in Czechoslovakia,” Kalvoda avers.

And “Rice’s discussion of the ‘Czechoslovak Legion’...is ridiculous.” She “is clearly ignorant of the history of the military unit as well as of the geography of the area on which it fought.”

Hilariously, Kalvoda observes Rice claims “the Czechoslovak president, Edward Benes,” was “order(ing) his troops to the barracks” in 1939 and 1948, when in 1939, Benes was actually “no longer president but was (instead) teaching at the University of Chicago .”

And her “writing” style “abounds with meaningless phrases.”

Strangely, the same year Rice’s error-ridden book was published, Stanford University awarded her its Walter J. Gores Prize for Excellence in Teaching.

How does Rice do it?

Social skills. Joseph Korbel, the former Czech diplomat (coincidentally Madeleine Albright’s father), mentored Rice: “I loved his course,” Rice gushed to a reporter, “and I loved him. He sort of picked me out as someone who might do this well,” she said, referring presumably to Eastern European Studies. Obviously, Korbel never checked his protégé’s homework on Czechoslovakia for accuracy.

Rice charmed Bush the father, who brought her into the White House in 1989 as National Security Council director of Soviet and Eastern European Affairs, and reportedly introduced her to Gorbachev as the girl who “tells me everything I know about the Soviet Union.”

Rice similarly charmed Bush the son. One reporter noted their intimacy: “A Bush aide says they vacation together; that they talk on the phone nearly every day; and that Bush trusts her completely to manage his foreign policy team and to provide counsel on other matters as well — including social issues.”

When asked why she supported Bush, Rice coquettishly replied, “Because I like him.” And sharp-eyed reporters noticed the Chanel-suited, shapely, never-married “Condi” was the most frequent overnight guest at the Texas governor’s mansion.

Is Clarke jealous of “Condi?” Maybe.

But is Clarke right? Is Rice responsible for the intelligence failure that caused Sept. 11?

Clarke believes Rice never heard of Al-Qaeda before he briefed her after Bush took office and he got this impression because of her “body language.” Rice did not deny this, but remarked, “I find it peculiar that Dick Clarke was sitting there reading my body language.”

Maybe Clarke had no choice if that’s how Rice talks.

Rice may be responsible for Bush not understanding the danger Al-Qaeda posed to the United States.

The President admits he doesn’t even read the newspapers, only what “Condi” gives him.

Wait and see. It won’t be over until the thin lady sings.