Fox and Reuters: White House set to release the PDB from Aug '01 anytime now..

Fox

[cyncooper]

Right off I found this interesting from the Rice May 2002 press briefing:

Now, the FAA was also concerned of threats to U.S. citizens such as airline hijackings, and therefore, issued an information circular -- and an information circular goes out the private carriers from law enforcement -- saying that we have a concern. That was a June 22nd information circular.

[Sacajaweau]

I have yet to hear INS mentioned.

[cyncooper]

From the Rice briefing (link at #659) she addresses the *secret PDB* that Ben Veniste acted like nobody'd heard of until he brought it up:

Now, on August 6th, the President received a presidential daily briefing which was not a warning briefing, but an analytic report. This analytic report, which did not have warning information in it of the kind that said, they are talking about an attack against so forth or so on, it was an analytic report that talked about UBL's methods of operation, talked about what he had done historically, in 1997, in 1998. 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. And the blind sheikh was mentioned by name as -- even though he's not an operative of al Qaeda, but as somebody who might be bargained in this way.

I want to reiterate, it was not a warning. There was no specific time, place or method mentioned. What you have seen in the run-up that I've talked about is that the FAA was reacting to the same kind of generalized information about a potential hijacking as a method that al Qaeda might employ, but no specific information saying that they were planning such an attack at a particular time.

[cyncooper]

More from Rice in May 2002:

Q Dr. Rice, there are a lot of widows and widowers and family members of the victims of September 11th who are listening to this, and thinking today that the government let them down, that there were intelligence failures. As the person who is supposed to connect the dots with the NSC for the President, what would you like to say to them today?

Dare I say it? They must not have listened very well since the families in question acted Thursday like they'd never heard of this PDB.

[cyncooper]

More from Rice in May:

Q Dr. Rice, forgive me, this page and a half document on August 6th, I know you say it was non-specific, and I know you say it's a compendium and an analytical report -- how can you say it wasn't a warning? Are you not telling the President that there's danger ahead?

DR. RICE: No. A warning -- there was nothing that said this is going to happen, or this might happen. It said, this is a method that these people might be considering. That was the nature of this. And it was very non-specific. In the sense that -- you know, if -- going again, comparing it to what we were seeing, for instance, on the G-8, this was an analytic piece that looked at methods that they might use.

[MeekOneGOP]

Thank you ! ;^)

[OESY]

Whether or not Democrats and establishment networks admit it, the demand of the 9/11 Panel to have the 8/6/01 Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) released to the public has backfired in their face Big Time. While it doesn't look intentional, there are strong elements of a Rope-a-Dope strategy at work because highly credible cabinet officers -- Powell, Rumsfeld and Rice were given a platform to make their cases to the public -- with Condi on all networks. It's a talented group Bush has assembled to do the country's business.

CNN's reacted initially as most Americans will, that Dr. Rice's testimony was sported by the release. As Condi said, the PDB was primarily historical, reiterated threats made by al Qaeda now four years old, had been specially requested by an engaged President Bush, and contained no specific actionable information, such as who, what, where, when and how, despite Schneider's claims on CNN that only the date was missing. His was an idiotic remark.

The PDB reference to hijacking of planes was for the purpose of holding passengers hostage while seeking release of the blind sheik implicated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, not for destroying a building and killing as many Americans as possible. But even if all details were present except for the date (and target), if you intercepted chatter that "something very, very big was going to happen," what would you shutdown? All airline and rail (remember Madrid's 3/11) facilities? All bridges and tunnels in cities over a million? All post offices? All government buildings? All nuclear facilities? All national monuments, like the Washington Monument, Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore?

And then the question becomes, For how long? For two days, two weeks, two months, two years, or until the attack comes? Would Americans want to do without travel, without working and without electricity for more than 24 hours? Clearly, Schneider made an ill-considered, nay, stupid and highly partisan call which exposes his weakness: his inability to do intelligent analysis with even a hint of objectivity. So much for CNN, the "Most Trusted" ... to be Most Unreliable! They should sack Schneider to try to salvage whatever might remain of their reputation from the Gulf War of 1991, except MSNBC which makes no such claims and exhibits still lower standards would scoop him up.

In summary, this is a big win for Bush. He did the unexpected and took the unprecedented step to declassify the PDB, which popped the Dems' balloon, instead of letting the issue fester. The hearings reinforced the need to renew the Patriot Act and, if the Panel ever gets to it, shows how shortsighted was the Gore-Reno-Messner push in 1996 to convert immigrants into voters for Clinton's reelection before they passed federal background checks. Furthermore, it points up the simple fact that a pistol in the cockpits of four planes, that is, four pistols as a last line of defense, would have saved 3,000 lives. Clinton never acted to arm or harden cockpits, to get the FBI and CIA to share information, or for that matter to accept the Sudanese's gift of bin Laden.

Unfortunately, the Panel's conduct has been a loss for Americans because, in the future, only information that can be released publicly will ever make it into PDBs. Briefings will become verbal or be transmitted to policy makers by other means. Furthermore, presidential executive privilege which the Clinton administration invoked about 27 times, and lost 26 times in the courts, has been further eroded. Meanwhile, the 9/11 Panel and the unscrupulous families pushing the Democrats' agenda have been exposed as having a transparently partisan goals that work against the interests of improving our national intelligence.

A key recommendation of the Panel should be to keep intelligence briefings out of the public domain to ensure the assessments remain honest and as accurate as possible. However, by its actions and tolerance of partisan cheerleading, the Panel has undercut their own credibility and usefulness. The nation would have been better off if Bush and his cabinet officers had continued to work behind the scenes to improve security, though the public is now better informed. The question is, Will the public remember the lessons learned from the conduct of such panels?

[max_rpf]

Good post... Very good summary, and I fully agree with you on the issue of Executive Privilege. I don't know how they are going to repair that one.

[BlessedByLiberty]

Good analysis. These panels or commissions should be restricted:

1) all members should not be allowed to run around and give talk show interviews or press conferences until after the reports are given;

2) questions should be presented as such, should the members want to offer personal opinions on any subject (like Kerrey going off on his Iraq rant), the chair should rebuke them.

[maica]

Great summary.The answer to you ending question is no, because most people get their info from Leno, Letterman, Oprah and Katie.

I hope that enough people will see the truth and get to the polls in November.

[Brandon]

I wonder what Kerry thinks?

He won't know until the overnight polling results come in.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[3catsanadog]

Who is this man and what is wrong with his hair?

(Sorry, I've been cleaning dirty bottoms at the nursing home all night and my ladies want to watch Turner Classic Movies and Lawrence Welk reruns on PBS.)

[3catsanadog]

Clarke has yet to explain how he missed the Embassy bombings, the Cole bombing, etc.. He speaks nothing of the Anthrax attack (Probably because there is STILL the possibility it is connected to Iraq). If you listened to Kay before he left, he noted the info found on the milling of Iraqi anthrax showed it as extremely refined.

Wouldn't it be sweet if this turned out to be true - and was authenticated, say around Oct. 31, 2004?

[3catsanadog]

those latins are so hot-blooded, you know.

Isn't Geraldo a Jew???? Isn't his real name Gerry Rivers?

[BlueAngel]

Geraldo's father was Puerto Rican and his mother is Jewish.

[smonk]

yeah, and he's from fresno, or something like that.

I was making a joke.

[3catsanadog]

Coming home from work tonight I was listening to a lib talk show on the local radio station. Some guy called in and claimed that on 9/11/01, the Air Force was conducting practice drills for defending against hijackings of commercial flights in the U.S. and when the planes hit, they never got an order to stop the other planes (something to that effect).

Anyone know anything about this - true or lib wishful thinking?

[3catsanadog]

283? days -- Don't forget that we had a lot of other stuff going on at the time. I seem to recall an American EP3 downed by the Chinese in the spring...

Chandra Levy!!!! Gary Condit!!!!!