The PDB, again

I'm polishing a new piece on the Presidential Daily Briefing of August 6, 2001. In it, we shall hear from a 9/11 Commissioner confirming the report that the PDB was originally 11-12 pages long, not a page and a half. I will also present evidence that the very existence of the memo was leaked to the press (in 2002) by someone at CIA -- almost certainly not DCI George Tenet.

I'll also have some information about what probably went missing, and will give a brief but (I hope) telling recounting of what the CIA knew, and should have known, about the forthcoming attack. Reference will be made to the Israeli surveillance teams tracking the hijackers. I'll end by presenting a new theory -- at least, I think it's new -- as to why the CIA did not act earlier.

The part of this analysis that still puzzles me is the ongoing "war" between the Bush White House and the CIA. Tenet seems willing to accommodate himself to just about anything the neocons dish out, but those beneath him at CIA seem to have a rather more combative attitude. The neocons who have infiltrated this administration seem to despise the Agency -- the same Agency which has named its headquarters after our current president's father. Where does this leave W?

My piece will include a fair amount of new, or at least unfamiliar, material. I may have to set up a web site for the permanent display of "formal" pieces of this sort, the PDB article is really too lengthy for a blog.