Posted on 04/09/2004 4:16:33 PM PDT by anniegetyourgun
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration expects to release early next week an intelligence document titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" that the Sept. 11 commission requested.
White House officials were working Friday to declassify the document, a so-called presidential daily brief.
PDBs are a compilation of information from law enforcement and intelligence agencies designed to keep the president updated on threats around the world. They normally are circulated exclusively among a select group of top administration officials.
Members of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States already have seen the Aug. 6, 2001, PDB about bin Laden. They requested Thursday that it declassified and released to the public "because we feel it's important that the American people get a chance to see it," commission chairman Thomas Kean said.
On Friday, White House communications director Dan Bartlett told NBC's "Today" that declassification work was under way. "There are important measures that have to be adhered to," he said. Later, White House officials said the process probably would continue into the early part of next week.
The Aug. 6 report is among a handful of PDBs that the commission has persuaded the government to let members see during the investigation.
In testimony Thursday, President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, called the commission's access exceptional. She did not respond directly to whether the Aug. 6 document should be released publicly.
Let me guess...
"Bin Laden, or someone like him, might attempt to do something in New York, or maybe Wyoming, involving aircraft, or maybe trains, sometime with the next month to ten years, or maybe not."
Clinton should have gone to the UN in 1993...the first time we were attacked on our soil. It was an inadequate response.
Best of the Web Today - April 9, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
'Not a Contemporary Piece of Information'
During yesterday's 9/11 commission hearing, Democratic lawyer Richard Ben-Veniste tried to set a trap for Condoleezza Rice over an August 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing:
Ben-Veniste: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6th PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?
Rice: I believe the title was, Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.
Now, the . . .
Ben-Veniste: Thank you.
Rice: No, Mr. Ben-Veniste . . .
Ben-Veniste: I will get into the . . .
Rice: I would like to finish my point here.
Ben-Veniste: I didn't know there was a point.
Rice: Given that--you asked me whether or not it warned of attacks.
Ben-Veniste: I asked you what the title was.
Rice: You said, did it not warn of attacks. 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.
Ben-Veniste's rudeness was clear for all to see, but to understand just how dishonest was his line of questioning, look at this article from the May 27, 2002, issue of Human Events, a conservative Washington weekly:
Sen. Bob Graham (D.-Fla.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told HUMAN EVENTS May 21 that his committee had received all the same terrorism intelligence prior to September 11 as the Bush administration.
"Yes, we had seen all the information," said Graham. "But we didn't see it on a single piece of paper, the way the President did."
Graham added that threats of hijacking in an August 6 memo to President Bush were based on very old intelligence that the committee had seen earlier. "The particular report that was in the President's Daily Briefing that day was about three years old," Graham said. "It was not a contemporary piece of information."
Graham is far from a supporter of the Bush administration, as he made clear last year in his brief but loopy presidential campaign. The 9/11 commission is supposed to be an impartial search for the truth. Is there any doubt that Ben-Veniste is guilty of trying to turn it into a partisan witch hunt?
I would plead with the American people and the good people of New York to keep your courage up and go on with your lives. I would discourage the American people from overreacting to this".
I guess this is what you say after the first attack on our soil since Pearl Harbor" when only a few people get killed and only hundreds were injured.
Pishaw said Clinton!!!!!!!!! And he treated all the other events in the same way.
Fox just said memo will be released tonight.
You know how!! Bloviate the parts THAT SEEM to indict GW, keep CONTEXT out of the spin and attack GW from any angle possible, interview only LEFTISTS or shy (afraid of their own shawdow) RINOS. Conclude each report as though GW let the nation down while vacationing on his ranch in TEXAS and end each newscast with a 911 victim's relative bashing the POTUS. That about covers it!
Graham added that threats of hijacking in an August 6 memo to President Bush were based on very old intelligence that the committee had seen earlier. "The particular report that was in the President's Daily Briefing that day was about three years old," Graham said. "It was not a contemporary piece of information."
Pray for W and The Truth
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