Bush to CIA Briefer: "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

[journalist3072]

So author Ron Suskind has a new book out called The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11.

And he talks about Bush's reaction upon receiving the now-famous August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) entitled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US."

Remind you, this was during the "summer of threat" when former CIA director George Tenet says that he was running around with his hair "on fire."

So you would expect that, given the nature of the August 6 PDB, George W. Bush would have galvanized into action. Ask the tough questions of his national security team. Perhaps you'd expect him to reach out to then-White House Counter-terrorism Chief Richard Clarke, who in January 2001 had asked for an "urgent and important" principles-level meeting to discuss the threat form Al Qaeda.

Just what was George Bush's reaction, then, to the August 6 PDB entitled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US."

He looked at the CIA briefer going over the PDB with him, and simply told him "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/19/AR2006061901211.html?sub=AR

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/06/20/911pdb/index.html?source=newsletter

[Fridays Child]

1. How should his words be interpreted?

Was the remark just another thoughtless and arrogant comment, so typical of Bush? I don't know. It seems too specific for me to believe that. So, was there a plan in place that included giving the CIA cover? I'd like to hear what Mark Crispin Miller and that professor of psychiatry who wrote Bush on the Couch think of it.

[Gman]

2. It's pretty clear that

it was something Bush really wasn't interested in hearing, and really didn't want to hear it. It wasn't a flip remark.

[journalist3072]

3. Exactly!!!!!!! It was almost as if he was saying

You've done what you had to do. Now get out of my face and let me get back to my vacation.

[CdnObserver]

4. Wasn't Tenet the briefer?

I remember (could be wrong) all accounts of the August 6 PDB saying it was Tenet who did the briefing.

[journalist3072]

5. Unnamed CIA briefer in Suskind's book...n/t