[cyncooper]

Condi Rice gave this briefing on May 16, 2002 and told these reporters about the August 6, 2001 PDB.

Someone linked me on another thread to Ari Fleischer's briefing the next day. I have not had a chance to look it over, but I believe that is when Ari *told the reporters the title of the PDB*.

I am leaving for the afternoon/early evening, but with all the blaring about "secret" memos and warnings that the media acts like they've never been told before, I thought it high time to provide yet more documentation.

Many of you have already seen the Washington Post May 19 article which frontpaged the PDB title and characterized the content. I wanted to fill in the blanks with this briefing and later, if nobody else has the chance, I'll link up Ari.

Happy Easter, all!

[cyncooper]

Pinging for later.

[cyncooper]

Leaving for a while but had a chance to find this.

[Reagan Man]

Here ya go.

Aug. Memo Focused On Attacks in U.S. Lack of Fresh Information Frustrated Bush (2002/PDB)

[Quicksilver]

Happy Easter to you, and here's the link you referred to.

Excerpt from Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer, May 17, 2002:

MR. FLEISCHER: ... The President was aware that bin Laden, of course, as previous administrations it's been well-known that bin Laden was determined to strike the United States. In fact, the label on the President's -- the PDB was, "bin Laden determined to strike the United States." And in another piece of this, it was just something that has been well-known to you all, is that the creation of the Office of Homeland Security was something that was planned even before September 11th, as Senator Feinstein has reminded her colleagues.

I added the bold emphasis.

[Reagan Man]

Oops. Wrong link. Try this one.

May.17,2002 Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer The James S. Brady Briefing Room 12:19 P.M. EDT

~snip~

"The President was aware that bin Laden, of course, as previous administrations it's been well-known that bin Laden was determined to strike the United States. In fact, the label on the President's -- the PDB was, "bin Laden determined to strike the United States."

[michaelt]

Awesome find bump.

[LurkedLongEnough]

Happy Easter to you too.

It is so frustrating to see the spin put on this by the media - taking advantage of simple ignorance of the pre-USA Patriot Act statutory divide between domestic and foreign intelligence services.

Thanks for the alert.

[Donna Lee Nardo]

bookmarking...

[Triple]

"It mentioned hijacking, but hijacking in the traditional sense, and in a sense, said that the most important and most likely thing was that they would take over an airliner, holding passengers and demand the release of one of their operatives." article, regarding the infamous PDB

I am relatively certain that the intelligence community knew al queda planned to use airliners as weapons, not just bargaining chips. CIA knew of a plan to crash airliners into CIA headquarters.

While Dr Rice, on balance, is good and truthful, the full truth would be that while perhaps not present in *this* pdb, the administration was aware of al queda's plans to use airliners as missiles on important US targets.

[Triple]

"It mentioned hijacking, but hijacking in the traditional sense, and in a sense, said that the most important and most likely thing was that they would take over an airliner, holding passengers and demand the release of one of their operatives." article, regarding the infamous PDB

I am relatively certain that the intelligence community knew al queda planned to use airliners as weapons, not just bargaining chips. CIA knew of a plan to crash airliners into CIA headquarters.

While Dr Rice, on balance, is good and truthful, the full truth would be that while perhaps not present in *this* pdb, the administration was aware of al queda's plans to use airliners as missiles on important US targets.