Press Didn't Buy White House Spin on 9/11 Document

By: Greg Mitchell When the White House released the sure-to-be-controversial Aug. 6, 2001, President's Daily Brief (PDB) on the terrorist threat against the U.S., its timing could not have been accidental. Coming shortly after 6 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, on Saturday, it not only emerged too late for the network news programs, it also gave the nation's daily newspapers just hours to digest and interpret it. To help reporters in this task, the White House also released a guide longer than the 17-sentence PDB.

But if the White House hoped that all of this would make major newspapers spin the story their way, officials there must be sadly disappointed today. Nearly every major outlet chose to focus on the aspects of the brief that were not merely "historical," as the administration had portrayed the document before its release.

Many newspapers ran Scott Lindlaw's Associated Press wrap-up which opened this way: "President Bush was told more than a month before the Sept. 11 attacks that al-Qaida had reached America's shores, had a support system in place for its operatives and that the FBI had detected suspicious activity that might involve a hijacking plot."

In his lead, Ken Fireman of Newsday, Melville, N.Y., focused on the fact that the CIA told Bush "that a group of Osama bin Laden supporters was said to be in the United States planning assaults with explosives."

The report from Knight Ridder's Washington Bureau noted that even though the briefing did not include specific information pointing to the 9/11 attacks, the public release of the once-classified document "could fuel criticism that Bush did not act aggressively enough in the summer of 2001 to prevent terrorist attacks."

And so it went across the top of front pages around country. The Washington Post headline boomed: "Declassified Memo Said Al Qaeda Was in U.S." The Boston Globe: "Bush Was Told of Quada Steps." The Indianapolis Star: "Briefing cited hijacking threat."

Although the document's emergence came too late for wide commentary in Sunday morning papers, what did appear was largely critical of the White House.

Ron Brownstein in the Los Angeles Times wrote in his lead: "Questions about the administration's vigilance dominated Condoleeza Rice's appearance last week before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But with the release Saturday night of a classified warning delivered to President Bush one month before the attacks, questions of credibility may become a growing challenge for Rice -- and the president she serves."

Douglas Jehl in The New York Times declared flatly the PDB "spells out the who, hints at the what and points toward the where of the terrorist attack on New York and Washington that followed 36 days later."

Ironically, also on Sunday, the Times published an Op Ed by Bob Kerrey, who serves on the 9/11 panel, which opened by declaring high praise for Rice for her "triumphal presentation. She was a spectacular witness."

Dana Milbank and Mike Allen in the Washington Post, meanwhile, recalled Aug. 7, 2001, the day after Bush received the briefing, at his Crawford ranch. Bush, they wrote, "seemed carefree" as he talked about golfing and jogging. If "top officials were at battle stations," they observed, "there was no sign of it on the surface."