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WASHINGTON - Richard Clarke’s testimony to the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks was considered so damaging that national security adviser Condoleezza Rice planned to ask the panel for a private interview to answer his allegations, a senior White House official told NBC News on Thursday.

During his appearance before the committee Wednesday, Clarke, the former counterterrorism coordinator in the Bush and Clinton White Houses, placed the bulk of the blame for the attacks on President Bush and apologized to the families of the approximately 3,000 victims, saying, “Your government failed you.”

Clarke, the star witness at the two days of hearings by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, accused Rice and Bush of ignoring Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist network before the attacks. He said his access to senior officials was cut off by the new Bush administration, which he said did not consider terrorism to be an “urgent problem.” In contrast, he said, the Clinton administration gave the terrorist threat its “highest priority.”

In interviews to promote his new book this week, Clarke alleged that Rice appeared not to even have heard of al-Qaida when he first broached the subject with her. He portrayed Bush as being obsessed with Iraq and its president, Saddam Hussein, saying Bush asked him directly almost immediately after the attacks to find out whether Iraq was involved.

The senior administration official told NBC News that Rice would ask the commission sometime Thursday for a private meeting as soon as possible to rebut Clarke’s testimony, which was widely praised by commission members. She was said to be concerned that his presentation would disproportionately influence the commission’s final report, which is expected in July, just four months before the presidential election.

But will it be in public? Or under oath? Well, of course not:

Rice, who has met privately with the commission once before, may not get her wish, however, because the commission could insist that any new appearance, even if in private, be conducted under oath. A source familiar with the commission’s operations told NBC News that the panel has consistently required anyone rebutting sworn testimony to be similarly under oath.

Rice has come under heavy criticism for refusing to testify before the commission under oath or in public. She said Wednesday in an interview on “NBC Nightly News” that she had a responsibility to protect the president’s constitutional guarantee of executive privilege, arguing that the president could not rely on his advisers to speak to him openly if they could be questioned about their advice to him.

It's now time to ask this rather important question: Shouldn't she at least testify under oath? If not, why not?

Is it because she's lying?

UPDATE Elvis56, the author of the indispensible Iraq Coalition Casualties Counter, has more.