The woes of not blogging on weekends. I feel like I’ve arrived at the movie theater too late and all the best seats are taken. Likewise, I’d like to weigh in on the news and controversy surrounding the release of the President’s Daily Briefing from August 6, 2001, but all the best commentary is already out there. Here’s my two-cents worth anyway.
First, the memo is damaging for the White House and they know it. How can I be sure? Because of the timing of its release. This memo could have been declassified and released any time. The White House chose Saturday evening, the day before Easter. Officials knew it would have to come out eventually; they chose the time they thought it would get the least play.
Second, it’s damaging because it makes Condoleezza Rice look like she lied under oath. Consider again how she described the memo to the 9/11 Commission:
“[The August 6 PDB] was not a particular threat report. And there was historical information in there about various aspects of al Qaeda’s operations…. It did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.”
Now that everyone’s seen the document, everyone knows Rice’s description of it was untrue. Yes, much of the document reflects on the historical interests of al Queda and Osama bin Laden, but there were plenty of warnings about a pending threat. The headline — “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US” — makes that clear, as do the last two paragraphs.
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.
“No new threat information”? Wrong.
And as for that headline that seemed to annoy Rice so much during her testimony, note that a former administration official told the Washington Post over the weekend:
“The agency doesn’t write a headline like that if it doesn’t want to get attention.” In this case, the former official said, “the CIA did not believe Bush policymakers were taking the threat to the U.S. seriously.”
And lastly, I think the most damaging aspect of the PDB is not what it says specifically, but the context in which it was written. The document did not exist in a vacuum; it was delivered to the president at an unusually dangerous time.
Let’s not forget that around the same time Bush received this PDB, Richard Clarke was directing every counterterrorist official he could find to cancel their vacation plans, defer non-vital travel, put off scheduled exercises, and place domestic rapid-response teams on much shorter alert. Top intelligence officials were, as we’ve been told many times, running around with their “hair on fire.” The NSA was well aware of the fact that al Queda sleeper cells were already in the United States and that “chatter” was growing more intense. Indeed, as Rice herself told the Commission:
Let me read you some of the actual chatter that we picked up that spring and summer: “Unbelievable news coming in weeks,” “Big event … there will be a very, very, very, very big uproar,” “There will be attacks in the near future.”
It was in this context that the president received a briefing that told him that al Queda and Osama bin Laden wanted to “retaliate in Washington,” were making “preparations for hijackings,” and were looking at “buildings in New York.” The memo didn’t give the White House specific flight numbers and departure times of the planes that would be hijacked, but this seems like a lot of pretty scary information that could have prompted a serious response.
This was August 6, 2001. What was Bush’s immediate response to the memo? On August 7, 2001, Bush left DC for the longest vacation ever taken by a sitting president.
Asleep…at…the…wheel.
Next up, a post about why Bush’s reaction to the memo’s Saturday release may be his dumbest move yet.