Remember...

Today, Condoleezza Dice is gambling with the truth.

A senior terrorism expert said yesterday that he had delivered a final desperate warning of an inevitable terrorist attack to Condoleezza Rice five days before al-Qaida struck New York's World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in Washington.

On the eve of the national security adviser's public appearance today to defend the Bush administration's record before the commission studying the September 11 attacks, Gary Hart, a former Democratic presidential candidate who co-chaired an earlier three-year public study of the threats to US security in the 21st century, told the Guardian his warning had been ignored.

"She [Rice] said: 'I'll discuss it with the vice-president'," Mr Hart said; but he felt the response was a brush-off.

"All I can say is she didn't feel the degree of urgency I thought was necessary," he said. He said he has known Ms Rice for 20 years, since she had volunteered to work on his Colorado Senate campaign.

Ms Rice will speak under oath for more than two hours to the national commission examining whether more could have been done to prevent the September 11 attacks. She is expected to make a detailed rebuttal of the allegations by Richard Clarke, a former White House chief counter- terrorist adviser, that the Bush team virtually ignored the al-Qaida threat because of its fixations on Iraq and strategic missile defence.

Mr Hart's comments add weight to Mr Clarke's argument and make Ms Rice's task even harder.

Together with Warren Rudman, a veteran Republican politician, Mr Hart chaired the US commission on national security/21st century, which was established by President Bill Clinton in October 1998 and told to report to the incoming president in early 2001.

That report predicted: "America will become increasingly vulnerable to hostile attack on our homeland [and] Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers."

It recommended a national homeland security agency.

To the surprise of the 14 commissioners, Mr Hart said, the recommendations were ignored. The post of homeland security adviser was established in the White House only after the September 11 attacks.

Gosh, that's damning to her credibility.

[Updated - 07:32]