POAC IX: Bush knew?

I didn't follow the order of the POAC playlist with POAC VIII. Just an oversight on my part. They've added new entries since I started this project, and that particular one caught my attention. I'll go to 17 instead of 16 before placing POAC on the list to atone for my error.

Now to business.
The supposed talking point:

The Bush administration had no idea that a 9-11 type attack would occur.

The "counter" spin:

US aviation received 52 al-Qaeda warnings before 9/11
Censorship of Aviation Warnings Leading up to 9/11
A point-by-point analysis of Condoleeza Rice's statements versus the truth

Three URLs, so we'll take them in order.

America's aviation authority received numerous warnings about al-Qaeda attacks in the six months before 9/11, including five that mentioned hijackings and two that mentioned suicide operations, it has emerged.

A previously published report by the commission set up to investigate the September 11 attacks on the United States reveals that the US Federal Aviation Authority received 52 intelligence reports on al-Qaeda between April and September 2001.

(TimesOnline)

Read down a few paragraphs and you'll see that the news story is relying on the 911 Commission staff report for the info. Office staffers for the members of the commission put together the preliminary report, which received some robust criticism concerning its accuracy. I will refer to the 911 Commission Report proper to place the claims in context.

The 9-11 Commission Report is a 585 page document. Go here to view the .pdf version.

The section on pre-911 threats begins on page 254 (the number appearing on the page--your Adobe Acrobat reader may disagree).

As 2001 began, counterterrorism officials were receiving frequent but fragmentary reports about threats. Indeed, there appeared to be possible threats almost everywhere the United States had interests--including at home.
To understand how the escalation in threat reporting was handled in the summer of 2001, it is useful to understand how threat information in general is collected and conveyed. Information is collected through several methods, including signals intelligence and interviews of human sources, and gathered into intelligence reports. Depending on the source and nature of the reporting, these reports may be highly classified--and therefore tightly held--or less sensitive and widely disseminated to state and local law enforcement agencies. Threat reporting must be disseminated, either through individual reports or through threat advisories. Such advisories, intended to alert their recipients, may address a specific threat or be a general warning.
Because the amount of reporting is so voluminous, only a select fraction can be chosen for briefing the president and senior officials.

With me so far? The POAC "talking point" in question concerns "The Bush administration." The 9-11 Commission report states that senior officials would receive briefing on a select fraction. This section of the report went on to give a rundown on the nature of the reports for the year through September 10. Forty of the daily briefs contained threats associated with bin Laden, and the report also makes clear that the report would only go to high-level officials.

So, if the Bush Administration were aware, it would be at high levels. CIA staffers are part of the executive branch, but are not part of the Bush administration, just to be clear on that (at this point I don't know if it will be relevant). Lower officials such as the FBI director and the attorney general received a version with some of the highly sensitive information redacted (SEIB).

Through page 263, the report summarizes the timeline and nature of the reports received by the administration according to their investigation.
This is the summary paragraph:

Most of the intelligence community recognized in the summer of 2001 that the number and severity of threat reports were unprecedented. Many officials told us that they knew something terrible was planned, and they were desperate to stop it. Despite their large number, the threats received contained few specifics regarding time, place, method, or target. Most suggested that the threats were planned against targets overseas; others indicated threats against unspecified "U.S. Interests." We cannot say for certain whether these reports, as dramatic as they were, related to the 9/11 attacks.

So, what is the meaning of "9-11 type attack"? To me, it means using passenger planes to blow stuff up. Maybe it means something completely different to the folks at POAC. Let's keep looking and maybe they'll tip us off.
As for the initial "counterspin," even 80 reports of al Qaeda threats wouldn't necessarily tip off the intention to use planes to blow up buildings. In addition, the TimesOnline story tends to suggest that all 52 threats were related to aviation ("A previously published report by the commission set up to investigate the September 11 attacks on the United States reveals that the US Federal Aviation Authority received 52 intelligence reports on al-Qaeda between April and September 2001"), but that almost certainly counts the entire number of threats associated with bin Laden that were subsequently forwarded to agency chiefs via the standard SEIB. Even the news report specifically stated that five of the reports mentioned hijackings and two mentioned suicide attacks. What other types of reports would be of particular interest to aviation? Embassy bombings? Assassinations?

***
Next.

Washington, D.C., February 10, 2005 - February 10, 2005 - As a result of a Freedom of Information Act appeal filed by the National Security Archive, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) corrected its October 2004 blunder of withholding the names and numbers of aviation warnings known as Information Circulars that were widely cited and quoted in the best-selling 9/11 Commission Report. In spite of this additional material, the released TSA documents continue to withhold details that were declassified in the recently released 9/11 Commission Staff Report on the pre-9/11 failings of the FAA that was the subject of a front page New York Times article by Eric Lichtblau today.

The release of documents on appeal has resulted in the disclosure of only one sentence of substance, a comment in the June 22, 2001 Information Circular, that states, "such an airline hijacking to free terrorists incarcerated in the United States, remains a concern." The sentence was released by TSA on appeal because it can be found in Chapter 8 of the 9/11 Commission Report on page 256.

Is this even worth mentioning? I suspect that the second paragraph wasn't in there when this POAC counterspin got to rotating. An airline hijacking designed to free terrorists incarcerated inside the U.S. isn't exactly a strong tip-off that population centers would be targeted using passenger planes.
No, that paragraph was in the original version posted in early 2005 (I checked). I honestly don't know what the point of this URL was. It doesn't help the case against the "talking point" at all. There's nothing to refute or explain.

***
Next.

The link is broken; it redirects to a main page with no article specific to Condoleeza Rice.

I found a page that may be the same or similar to the one POAC was using. It's hilarious.

• CLAIM: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile." – National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 5/16/02
• FACT: On August 6, 2001, the President personally "received a one-and-a-half page briefing advising him that Osama bin Laden was capable of a major strike against the US, and that the plot could include the hijacking of an American airplane." In July 2001, the Administration was also told that terrorists had explored using airplanes as missiles. [Source: NBC, 9/10/02; LA Times, 9/27/01]

The LA Times link is broken; or at least you don't get to view the article automatically by clicking on the link. The date of the article is immediately suspicious. September 27 of 2001 is very soon after the attack.

Found the story.

The story lead paraphrases "officials" as talking about an attack using airliners.
Further in, we find the details. An Italian talks about an intelligence report regarding using an airliner in an attack. Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak is quoted talking about a "an airplane stuffed with explosives" (assumed to be an airliner?). And the whole episode concerns an attack on a summit in Genoa (July, 2001). Read even further into the story and US intelligence claimed to have found the report unreliable.

What is this intended to prove? When Rice is talking about not thinking that anybody thought that attacks would use planes as bombs, she would have known that the Japanese used kamikazi attacks during WW2--so pretty obviously she's not talking about just any old attacks. She'd have been talking about the attacks associated with the 2001 warnings, and the 9-11 Commission evidence backs her up.

• CLAIM: In May 2002, Rice held a press conference to defend the Administration from new revelations that the President had been explicitly warned about an al Qaeda threat to airlines in August 2001. She "suggested that Bush had requested the briefing because of his keen concern about elevated terrorist threat levels that summer." [Source: Washington Post, 3/25/04]
• FACT: According to the CIA, the briefing "was not requested by President Bush." As commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste disclosed, "the CIA informed the panel that the author of the briefing does not recall such a request from Bush and that the idea to compile the briefing came from within the CIA." [Source: Washington Post, 3/25/04]

From the May 16, 2002 press conference:

Q Specifically, after this August 6th analytic report briefing that the president had, what did he do, what did other people in the administration do? What did he make of it? What action was taken? And why didn't he ever tell the American people about it?

MS. RICE: Well, the action was being taken because, if you notice, what is briefed to him in kind of a summary way -- and I should say, he had said to his briefer, "I'd like you from time to time to give me summaries of what you know about potential attacks." And this was an analytic piece that tried to bring together several threats.

In 1997, they talked about this. In 1998, they talked about that. It's been known that maybe they want to try and release the Blind Sheikh. I mean, that was the character of it. And so the actions were being taken in response to the generalized information that was being reported hereto. And the president was aware that there were ongoing efforts that were being taken.

And:

Q Condi, this analytic report that the president received sounds like it wasn't his ordinary morning brief. Was it something that he had requested because of the various elements that had come up? Was it something you had requested? And just to follow up on Terry's point here, was the hijacking mentioned here based on any new intelligence that had been developed between these meeting that you mentioned in July 5th-6th timeframe, or was it simply -- did it come out of the Philippines experience and --

MS. RICE: It was actually summarizing the kind of intelligence that they'd been acting on, if you can -- I mean, I think it's a little strong to actually call it intelligence -- the interpretation that was there that these were people who might try hijacking.

It was -- very often as a part of his normal brief, David, he will get things that have been prepared for him because he's asked for a specific kind of document. And as I said, he frequently says, "You know, I'd like to see everything you know about X, or I'd like you to summarize," because, as you can imagine, you get intelligence in little snippets; it's helpful from time to time to put it together.
(Center for Research on Globalization)

In the hands of reporter Mike Allen and researcher Margot Williams, the above becomes

After the highly classified document's existence was first revealed in news reports in May 2002, Rice held a news conference in which she suggested that Bush had requested the briefing because of his keen concern about elevated terrorist threat levels that summer.
(the Washington Post)

Are reporters supposed to make things up?
The story makes a big deal about how the CIA denied compiling the report at Bush's request, as if that encourages the conclusion that Rice's contention that Bush requested a summary of that type was therefore false.
"[K]een concern." Oh, my. What will those reporters think up next?


Chalk up another abject failure for POAC "Counterspin."

I should mention that I did find another Rice story at the other site. It's considerably shorter than the one I found, but perhaps not as embarrassingly inept.