Egads! Another correction! More on the PDB...

Previously, I had written under the impression that Oliver Schroem was the first to publish details about the important August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." Schroem's account appeared in Die Zeit, on October 2, 2002. However, vague references to this memo popped into a number of news stories -- such as this CBS News piece -- on May 17, 2002. In a press briefing that same day, Ari Fleischer made glancing mention of the document and even gave a slightly-incorrect version of the title. The next day, a Washington Post story by Bob Woodward and David Eggen was the first to mention this document by name in print. The relevant paragraphs:


The top-secret briefing memo presented to President Bush on Aug. 6 carried the headline, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," and was primarily focused on recounting al Qaeda's past efforts to attack and infiltrate the United States, senior administration officials said.

The document, known as the President's Daily Briefing, underscored that Osama bin Laden and his followers hoped to "bring the fight to America," in part as retaliation for U.S. missile strikes on al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan in 1998, according to knowledgeable sources.

Bush had specifically asked for an intelligence analysis of possible al Qaeda attacks within the United States, because most of the information presented to him over the summer about al Qaeda focused on threats against U.S. targets overseas, sources said. But one source said the White House was disappointed because the analysis lacked focus and did not present fresh intelligence.

New accounts yesterday of the controversial Aug. 6 memo provided a shift in portrayals of the document, which has set off a political firestorm because it suggested that bin Laden's followers might be planning to hijack U.S. airliners.


The title of the document was also revealed in a May 19, 2002 Observer article by Jason Burke and Ed Vulliamy.

Little of this affects the significance of Schroem's piece. These articles do not undercut the allegations that the PDB was originally 11 1/2 pages long. Woodward's source may or may not have been accurate in reporting that the memo contained no fresh intelligence. We won't know unless we see the full document. According to Schroem, Tenet traveled to Crawford to deliver this briefing, and one can hardly imagine the CIA's head honcho going to such trouble in order to present a history lesson.