Officials now agree that on July 10, 2001, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism deputy, J. Cofer Black, were so alarmed about intelligence pointing to an impending attack by Al Qaeda that they demanded an emergency meeting at the White House with Ms. Rice and her National Security Council staff.
According to two former intelligence officials, Mr. Tenet told those assembled at the White House about the growing body of intelligence the C.I.A. had collected suggesting an attack was in the works. But both current and former officials, including allies of Mr. Tenet, took issue with Mr. Woodward’s account that he and his aides had left the meeting feeling that Ms. Rice had ignored them.
But at the same time, it seems the 9/11 Commission did know about the meeting, and just sort of...forgot about it (via Kevin Drum):
The independent Sept. 11, 2001, commission was given the same “scary” briefing about an imminent al Qaida attack on a U.S. target that was presented to the White House two months before the attacks, but failed to disclose the warning in its 428-page report.
Former CIA Director George Tenet presented the briefing to commission member Richard Ben Veniste and executive director Philip Zelikow in secret testimony at CIA headquarters on Jan. 28, 2004, said three former senior agency officials.
Kevin says we should just let everybody see the Power Point display Tenet showed Rice:
These mysteries are absurd. Show us the slides and let's see who's telling the truth. Either the content is hair-raising or it's not. Either it specifically says bin Laden was planning attacks on U.S. soil or it doesn't. My guess is that it doesn't, but McClatchey quotes an anonymous official as saying Tenet's warning rated a "10 on a scale of 1 to 10." Fine, but the only way to know for sure is to see the slides. So let's see 'em.I'm going to go ahead and say that's not going to happen, however much we might like to see them.
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