Washington, March 28 (Reuters): The commission investigating the September 11, 2001, attacks feels unanimously that White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice should testify in public, the panel’s head said today.

Rice is refusing to appear before the commission in public and under oath to answer allegations from a former White House counter-terrorism official that the Bush administration neglected the threat from al Qaida.

But former New Jersey governor Tom Kean told Fox News Sunday that his panel would not try to force her to do so under a court order. “To get into a court battle over a subpoena we don’t think is really appropriate right now nor will it help us,” he said.

The administration is resting its refusal to let Rice testify in public on a ruling by White House legal counsel Alberto Gonzales that to do so would set a precedent that other presidential advisers could be compelled to testify about advice they have given the President.

“We think in a tragedy of this magnitude that those kind of legal arguments are probably overridden,” Kean said.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has challenged Rice to appear publicly, accusing President George W. Bush’s White House of stonewalling the commission and of attempting “character assassination” against its own former counter-terrorism chief, Richard Clarke. Clarke has sparked a political firestorm for Bush by questioning — most recently in public testimony before the 9/11 commission — his commitment to fighting terror before hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and killed more than 3,000 people.

Rice, once Clarke’s White House superior, has led furious administration denials of the charges.

Foreigners killed in Iraq

Two foreigners, one of them British, were shot dead and a US armoured vehicle destroyed in a rash of attacks in the increasingly lawless Iraqi city of Mosul today.

Security has deteriorated sharply in Mosul in recent weeks, further complicating US efforts for an orderly transfer of power to Iraqis in July.