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How the world`s hottest daily is designed by CIA: The Asian Age
Washington, Nov 12: People call it a lot of things: the world`s most exclusive newspaper, a supersecret product of the Central Intelligence Agency and a document so sensitive that widespread dissemination would endanger lives.
Washington, Nov 12: People call it a lot of things: the world’s most exclusive newspaper, a supersecret product of the Central Intelligence Agency and a document so sensitive that widespread dissemination would endanger lives.
"This thing can kill people," said Milton Bearden, who ran the CIA’s war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan.
Whatever the definition, the document is the innocuously named President’s Daily Brief, a 10- to 12-page report produced overnight by the CIA. In recent weeks, it has become the hottest property in Washington. Two powerful bodies are demanding to see it: the nonpartisan commission investigating the September 11 terrorist attacks and the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is trying to determine how the Bush administration reached its conclusions about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Negotiations and threats of subpoenas continued last week, but so far the White House has claimed that the PDB, as it is called, is off limits under executive privilege. No one remembers any White House ever giving it up.
So what, exactly, is in the PDB? Who gets to read it? And why do investigators say it is essential to understanding why the Bush administration invaded Iraq, or to learning what went wrong on Sept. 11, 2001?
Here are some answers, gathered from national security officials in the current and past administrations. On the outside, the briefing is a blue, three-ring, loose-leaf notebook with "President’s Daily Brief" stamped across the top. Inside is what the CIA considers the most important information of the last 24 hours.
"If there’s something new and exciting and important, it has a good chance of making the PDB," said R. James Woolsey, who was President Bill
Clinton’s first CIA director. "It’s like making the front page." The document is handed to Mr Bush in the Oval Office around 8 am each day by a CIA briefer and the agency’s director, George Tenet. Usually three other people are present: vice-president Dick Cheney; Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser; and Andrew Card Jr, the White House chief of staff. The three get their own copies of the briefing, as do secretary of state Colin Powell and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Administration officials say that the publication’s readership is no more than 10, and that the CIA briefers wait while the Cabinet members read it. Then copies are taken back to the agency’s headquarters. White House officials will not say what the President does with his copy, but there are no extras floating throughout the government. The PDB is different from Mr Bush’s daily "threat assessment," a separate compilation of what US intelligence agencies pick up about potential terrorist activity. Mr Bush has received the threat assessment since September 11; the PDB has been around since at least the Ford administration.
National security officials say the briefing distinguishes itself from other intelligence reports by better describing the methods used to gather information. Mr Woolsey gave a hypothetical example: "The PDB would say, ‘We have a source in President X’s household with medical training who is reasonably confident that President X has cirrhosis of the liver.’ Lower-level intelligence would say, ‘We have concerns about the health of President X.’"
But Mr Woolsey and other past national security officials say the PDB is not foolproof. "Intelligence is imperfect," Mr Woolsey said. "But it’s the best they can do." The White House acknowledged last year that one PDB in August 2001, the month before the terrorist attacks, referred to the possibility that Al Qaeda would hijack passenger planes. "The real question is how explicit it was, and whether it was actionable," said a former government official who has read the PDB. "That’s why the commission wants to see it."
The commission has also asked for PDBs from the Clinton administration. "If the commission is going to understand what happened on 9/11," said Tim Roemer, a commission member and a former Democratic congressman, "these are vitally important documents."
"This thing can kill people," said Milton Bearden, who ran the CIA’s war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan.
Whatever the definition, the document is the innocuously named President’s Daily Brief, a 10- to 12-page report produced overnight by the CIA. In recent weeks, it has become the hottest property in Washington. Two powerful bodies are demanding to see it: the nonpartisan commission investigating the September 11 terrorist attacks and the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is trying to determine how the Bush administration reached its conclusions about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Negotiations and threats of subpoenas continued last week, but so far the White House has claimed that the PDB, as it is called, is off limits under executive privilege. No one remembers any White House ever giving it up.
So what, exactly, is in the PDB? Who gets to read it? And why do investigators say it is essential to understanding why the Bush administration invaded Iraq, or to learning what went wrong on Sept. 11, 2001?
Here are some answers, gathered from national security officials in the current and past administrations. On the outside, the briefing is a blue, three-ring, loose-leaf notebook with "President’s Daily Brief" stamped across the top. Inside is what the CIA considers the most important information of the last 24 hours.
"If there’s something new and exciting and important, it has a good chance of making the PDB," said R. James Woolsey, who was President Bill
Clinton’s first CIA director. "It’s like making the front page." The document is handed to Mr Bush in the Oval Office around 8 am each day by a CIA briefer and the agency’s director, George Tenet. Usually three other people are present: vice-president Dick Cheney; Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser; and Andrew Card Jr, the White House chief of staff. The three get their own copies of the briefing, as do secretary of state Colin Powell and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Administration officials say that the publication’s readership is no more than 10, and that the CIA briefers wait while the Cabinet members read it. Then copies are taken back to the agency’s headquarters. White House officials will not say what the President does with his copy, but there are no extras floating throughout the government. The PDB is different from Mr Bush’s daily "threat assessment," a separate compilation of what US intelligence agencies pick up about potential terrorist activity. Mr Bush has received the threat assessment since September 11; the PDB has been around since at least the Ford administration.
National security officials say the briefing distinguishes itself from other intelligence reports by better describing the methods used to gather information. Mr Woolsey gave a hypothetical example: "The PDB would say, ‘We have a source in President X’s household with medical training who is reasonably confident that President X has cirrhosis of the liver.’ Lower-level intelligence would say, ‘We have concerns about the health of President X.’"
But Mr Woolsey and other past national security officials say the PDB is not foolproof. "Intelligence is imperfect," Mr Woolsey said. "But it’s the best they can do." The White House acknowledged last year that one PDB in August 2001, the month before the terrorist attacks, referred to the possibility that Al Qaeda would hijack passenger planes. "The real question is how explicit it was, and whether it was actionable," said a former government official who has read the PDB. "That’s why the commission wants to see it."
The commission has also asked for PDBs from the Clinton administration. "If the commission is going to understand what happened on 9/11," said Tim Roemer, a commission member and a former Democratic congressman, "these are vitally important documents."