Briefing on Al Qaeda Included Specifics

Even the briefing's heading is a matter of minor disagreement. Then-White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters on May 17, 2002, that the briefing was titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike the United States," while Rice testified Thursday that it was "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." Numerous sources said in 2002 and this week that the correct title is "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."

Rice emphasized in her testimony Thursday that the PDB included "a long section on what bin Laden had wanted to do -- speculative, much of it -- in '97, '98, that he had in fact liked the results of the 1993 [World Trade Center] bombing."

"The president was told this is historic information," Rice said.

But Democratic commissioner Jamie S. Gorelick, a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, said in an interview yesterday that Rice ignores the importance of more current information that was also included in the August 2001 document.

"She is right in a sense that it does not contain a warning per se," said Gorelick, one of only three commissioners who have seen the CIA-prepared PDB as part of a special deal with the White House. "She is also wrong in that it is not just an analytical piece. . . . It is a summary of what the agency knew that gave them reason to believe bin Laden wanted to attack the United States."

Another commissioner, Republican John F. Lehman, a former Navy secretary, is one of seven commissioners who have seen only a summary of the PDB. He said the current information within it is not particularly specific.

"On the FBI's part of it, it says don't worry about it, we've got 70 field investigations going," Lehman said. "That's the tone of it. . . . I found it to be net favorable to the president, which is why I can't understand why they were so restrictive in the first place to letting us have access to it."

The Sept. 11 commission, which has been at the center of a political storm over the last two weeks, is gearing up for another round of explosive hearings here Tuesday and Wednesday. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and their predecessors, Janet Reno and Louis J. Freeh, are expected to defend their anti-terrorism efforts when they testify.

Former FBI acting director Thomas J. Pickard, who will also testify, has told the commission in private that Ashcroft had little interest in terrorism in the summer of 2001, numerous sources have said. Thomas H. Kean, the panel's Republican chairman, said in an interview yesterday that "the hearing will focus very closely on the failures by the FBI and many others" prior to the attacks.