Former national security counter-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke is on the Joe Nacchio defense witness list, suggesting he could testify if Nacchio's team pursues a national-security defense.

Clarke and Nacchio attended the same meeting in the White House situation room in March 2001, in which possible secret telecommunications work for the government was discussed.

James Payne, former head of Qwest's government business unit, described that meeting to prosecutors in an interview in November 2005.

The discussion, Payne said, was attended by about 15 to 20 people in conjunction with a President Bush-appointed national security telecommunications advisory panel. Nacchio was a member of that panel and Payne was his representative. Condoleeza Rice, then the top national security adviser, also was at the meeting.

Clarke, who oversaw cybersecurity, asked another communications executive if it would be possible to construct a private network for the government. Nacchio piped up, saying it was not only possible but that Qwest already had built such private networks.

A debate ensued, in which other communications executives present at the meeting said such a network would be prohibitively expensive. It's unclear whether Nacchio and Clarke had subsequent meetings on the topic.

Donna Jaegers, a telecommunications analyst with Janco Partners in Greenwood Village, told the Rocky Mountain News last spring that she met with Nacchio after one of his trips to Washington and remembered him being "gaga" over the possibility of Qwest providing services for a private Internet network for the government. Jaegers said she couldn't recall the approximate time of that meeting.

The possibility of a national-security defense came up only once, and very briefly and vaguely, during the defense's opening statement Tuesday.

But should it be employed, Nacchio's attorneys will argue their client was optimistic about Qwest's financial condition in 2001 partly because he believed the Denver telco was in line to land hundreds of millions of dollars of lucrative federal government contracts.

Payne also is expected to be a key witness if this strategy is employed, but his testimony could cut both ways. The 2005 interview reflected that Payne was cautious about including the prospective contracts in budget figures because of their speculative nature.

smithje@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5155