US: President Bush and US Vice-President Dick Cheney will today appear in private before the independent commission investigating events leading to September 11th, as supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry renew efforts to make the inactivity of the Bush administration an election issue.
Yesterday the pro-Democrat lobby group, MoveOn.org, placed a full-page ad in the New York Times claiming Mr Bush showed a "failure in leadership" in the weeks before September 11th.
It cited an August 6th, 2001 presidential daily briefing delivered to Mr Bush by the CIA headed: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US", and charged that "he did nothing" about it in the five weeks before the attacks.
Mr Bush's response to the briefing document is likely to be among the key issues raised by members of the 10-member bipartisan commission in their meeting with Mr Bush and Mr Cheney in the White House, which starts at 9.30 this morning.
Commission members are also expected to focus on the charge by former White House counter-terrorism official Mr Richard Clarke that, in the eight months before September 11th, no strategy to deal with the threat from Osama bin Laden was submitted to the President.
The White House has asked that no recording or transcript of the session be made, citing the classified nature of some of the evidence to be discussed.
Former president Bill Clinton and vice-president Al Gore allowed their testimony to be recorded. Both sides will, however, have one staff member present to take notes. White House counsel Mr Alberto Gonzales will be present to advise Mr Bush and Mr Cheney.
"You should not look at this as an adversarial process," said White House press secretary Mr Scott McClellan. Mr Bush spent much of the last two days consulting aides in preparation for his unsworn evidence, which, the White House insists, should not be considered as formal testimony.
The Republican chairman of the panel, former governor Thomas Kean of New Jersey, said no time limit had been set for the encounter but that he had been asked to "please respect the fact that this is the President of the United States, and I'm sure members of the commission will do that." Democratic member Mr Timothy Roemer noted that Mr Clinton gave four hours of testimony and that Mr Bush had spoken with journalist Bob Woodward for three hours for his book about the Iraq war.
The White House, which at first opposed the creation of the commission and then sought to prevent National Security Adviser Ms Condoleezza Rice from testifying and to limit the time of the President's evidence to one hour, was forced to drop these conditions under pressure.
So far Mr Bush has not been seriously damaged by the inquiry's revelations. In a recent Washington Post poll 58 per cent of Americans said they would trust Mr Bush more than Mr Kerry to lead the fight against terrorism.