A Battle over Bush's Daily Brief

When National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice stepped into room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building, she was stepping into the lion's den.

A forest of television cameras awaited her arrival before the Sept. 11 commission; all the major broadcast networks carried her testimony live. And the tension was heightened by the drawn-out battle the White House had fought to prevent her from being there at all.

Rice appeared alone, no deputy by her side to consult at tense moments or to take some of the heat. And heat she got. The chair and vice chair of the panel had worked to ensure the session did not deteriorate into political mud-slinging. But inevitably, some of the fiercest questioning came from Democratic commissioners.

Those hoping for hearing-room high drama got it. Here's a sample exchange, when commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democrat, pushed Rice to reveal the contents of a classified intelligence memo from August 2001. It's known as the President's Daily Brief, or "PDB."

Ben-Veniste: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the Aug. 6 PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?

Rice: I believe the title was, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." Now, the ...

Ben-Veniste: Thank you.

Rice: No, Mr. Ben-Veniste ...

Ben-Veniste: I will get into the ...

Rice: I would like to finish my point here.

Ben-Veniste: I didn't know there was a point.

Rice: Given that -- you asked me whether or not it warned of attacks.

Ben-Veniste: I asked you what the title was.

Rice: You said, did it not warn of attacks. It did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.

That exchange introduced what was to become a central point of contention during Rice's appearance before the panel. The Aug. 6 memo is still classified. In fact, even the title was not publicly known before Rice revealed it.

Ben-Veniste called on Rice and the White House to declassify the document in full -- a request that drew applause from family members of Sept. 11 victims. Rice fired back that Ben-Veniste (and other commissioners) has already had "exceptional" access to the document.

But as other commissioners repeated the request, over more than two hours of questioning, it became clear that they are unlikely to let the declassification issue drop. And the commission has an impressive track record when it comes to grinding down opposition to its demands. Two weeks ago, commissioners launched a dogged effort to get Rice to testify. With help from Sept. 11 family members, an increasingly effective lobbying force, they were able to exert enough pressure on the White House to make that happen. Now, the question of whether the Aug. 6 PDB should be made public looks set to be the next showdown between the commission and the White House.

This promises to be a tricky one for the White House. Rice herself argued that the memo was "historical information based on old reporting," and contained "no new threat information." If so, White House lawyers may find themselves hard-pressed to explain why it shouldn't now be declassified.

That would allow the American public to read it -- and make up their own minds about whether the Bush administration did enough to try to prevent Sept. 11.