Homeland Security

DATE=4/13/04

TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP

NAME=BRIEFING MEMO CONTROVERSY

NUMBER=6-130337

BY LINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

CONTENT=

INTRO: A sharp debate has erupted in the American press concerning President Bush's response to a classified briefing memo in August of 2001 warning of a possible terror attack. The much-discussed memo was declassified and released by the White House over the weekend. Newspapers are divided on whether the president's reaction was appropriate, as we learn now from V-O-A's ___________ who joins us with a sampling in today's U-S Opinion Roundup.

TEXT: The conflict centers on what inferences could be drawn about the threat of an al-Qaida attack in the United States. The briefing memo says al-Qaida operatives were in the country and probably watching federal buildings in New York City; that domestic aircraft hijackings were a possible method of attack, and it said there were 70 F-B-I investigations already under way. The president says that none of the memo's information was specific enough for him to act upon. That response is not good enough for Missouri's Kansas City Star.

VOICE: President Bush and his national security adviser are arguing that "up" is "down." They say the dire warning they received about al-Qaida before the September 11th attacks were not warnings at all. This is obvious nonsense.... The memo ... warned the president that the terrorist network run by Osama bin Laden wanted to make a target of the [U-S.] ...Yet two days before the memo was ... released, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice presented this fatuous claim to the American public: The document "did not warn of attacks inside the United States."

TEXT: Context, context, says Salt Lake City's Deseret Morning News, as it suggests how the memo should be perceived.

VOICE: It contains a lot of words and phrases that, in hindsight, strike familiar chords. ... One could easily look at this ... memo and conclude the new president was sleeping on the job; that he had the 9/11 nightmare spelled out for him ... and did nothing to stop it. And that would be totally out of context. ...Americans should have enough faith in his leadership to take him at face value when he says, "Had I known ... I would have moved mountains to stop the attack." ...

TEXT: Ohio's Akron Beacon Journal suggests that not only the Bush White House but also the whole nation was suffering from a false complacency in the days before the terrorist attacks.

VOICE: ... fighting terrorism wasn't near the top of the Bush agenda in the months prior to September 11, and the administration wasn't alone. The country collectively had its guard down.

TEXT: While The New York Times is not overly critical of Mr. Bush, it points out:

VOICE: He could, for instance, have left his vacation in Texas after receiving that briefing memo entitled, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U-S" and rushed back to the White House, ... [demanding] to know what, in particular, was being done to screen airline passengers to make sure people who fit ... threat profiles were being prevented from boarding American planes.... those what-if questions should haunt the president as they haunt the nation.

TEXT: As for National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice's characterization of the memo as "historical information ..." and not urgent, Portland's Oregonian retorts:

VOICE: Her description was ludicrous, since the memo described future attacks and detailed one terrorist threat made just three months earlier. But [President] Bush's public statements ... were even more troubling... He didn't accept responsibility for his part in the weak chains of communication and action.

TEXT: Discounting the memo as "decidedly n o t" the so-called "smoking gun" the president's critics have been looking for, Denver's [Colorado] Rocky Mountain News says: "In fact, most of the briefing [memo] was based on TV reports that took place several years earlier.... Far from being specific, some of the information [also] turned out to be wrong."

TEXT: That view from the Rocky Mountain News concludes this sampling of reaction to the President's briefing memo on terrorism prior to the 9/11 attacks.

NEB/ANG/KL