BLANTON, THOMAS S.; ALL DOC'S RELATING IN WHOLE OR IN PART TO THEN CIA DIRECTOR G. TENET'S MEETING WITH THEN NAT'L SEC. ADVISOR CONDOLEEZA RICE ON

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0001371055
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: June 24, 2015
• Document Release Date: March 11, 2011
• Case Number: F-2010-01608
• Publication Date: October 16, 2006

~_ 10/17/06 13:29 FAX [phone]
The-National Se~tarity Archive
The George Washington University
Gelman Library, Suite 701
2130 H Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20037
October 16, 2006
Scott A. Koch
Information and Privacy Coordinator
Central Intelligence Agen~:,y
Washington, DC 20505
Re: Request under the FO.IA, in reply refer to Archive# 20061949C][A310
Phone:202J994-7000
Fax: [phone].
[e-mail]
www.nsarchive.org
Pursuant to the Freedom caf Information Act (FOIA), I hereby request the following:
(b)(3)
All documents, including but not limited to cables, letters, memoranda, briefingpapers, transcripts, summaries, notes,
emails, reports, drafts, arr.d intelligence documents relating in whole or in part to then CIA Director George Tenet's
meeting with then Natiofii al Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on July 10, 2001.
This meeting is cited in ZI'ob Woodward's book State of Denial: Bush at War Part III. It is also cited in an October 2,
2006, New York Times Ai~?ticle, "Records Show Tenet Briefed Rice on Al Qaeda Threat," by Philip Shenon and Mark
Mazzetti as well as an Oc~!ober 3, 2006, Washington Post article, "Tenet Recalled Warning Rice," by Dan Eggers and
Robin Wright. I've attacl~ied copies of both articles for your reference.
If you regard any of these documents as potentially exempt from the FOIA's disclosure requirements, i request that you
nonetheless exercise your discretion to disclose them. As the FOIA requires, please release all reasonably segregable non
exempt portions of docuna.ents. To permit me to reach an intelligent and informed decision whether or not to file an
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basis for your exemption r,;laims.
As a representative of the news media, the National Security Archive qualifies for "representative of the news media"
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Security Archive v. U.S. I~~epartment of Defense, 880 F.2d 1381 (D.C. Cir. 1989), cert denied, 110 S Ct. 1478 (1990}).
Tlus request is made as p:,irt of a scholarly and news reseazch project that is intended for publication and is not for
commercial use. For deta,:ils on the Archive's research and extensive publication activities please see our website at
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To expedite the release oi'the requested documents, please disclose them on an interim basis as they become available to
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response within the twent~~ day statutory time period.
Sincerely yours,
Thomas S. Blanton
Executive Director
NAT'L SECURITY ARCHIVE 1~J002
 10/17/06 13:29 FAX [phone] NAT'L SECURITY ARCHIVE
Records Show Tenet: Briefed Rice on Al Qaeda Threat -New York Times
October a, aoo6
~ 003
Page 1 of 3
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Records S~?iow Tenet Briefed Rice on Al Qaeda Threat
By ~II~,IP SHEN?;IV and MARK MAZZETTI
JIDDA, Saudi Arali:~ia, Oct. 2 -- A review of White House records has determined that eo ge J.
Tet~~, then the dig?ector of central intelligence, did brief Condoleezza Rice and other top
officials on July ici~, 2001, about the looming threat from Al ae a, a State Department
spokesman said Monday.
The account by Sevin McCormack came hours after Ms. Rice, the secretary of state, told
reporters aboard Yuer'airplane that she did not recall the specific meeting on July lo, 2001,
noting that she hari met repeatedly with Mr. Tenet that summer about terrorist threats. Ms.
.Rice, the national ,:security adviser at the time, said it was "incomprehensible" she ignored dire
terrorist threats tv~~~o months before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Mr. McCormack a;l.so said records show that the Sept. 11 commission was informed about the
meeting, a fact th~i.t former intelligence officials and members of the commission confirmed on
Monday.
When details of th. a meeting emerged last week in a new book by Bob Woodward of The
Washington Post, Bush administration officials questioned Mr. Woodward's reporting.
Now, after several days, both current and former Bush administration officials have confirmed
parts of Mr. Woodl.ward's account.
Officials now agreo~ that on July lo, 2ooi, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism deputy, J. Cofer
Black, were so alarmed about an impending Al Qaeda attack that they demanded an emergency
meeting at the Wl site House with Ms. Rice and her 1V~~iQna1 Security Council staff.
According to two i:~orrner intelligence officials, Mr. Tenet told those assembled at the White
House about the g; rowing body of intelligence the Central Intelligence Agency had collected
pointing to an iml,~~ending Al Qaeda attack. But both current and former officials took issue
with Mr. Woodwa:i?d's account that Mr. Tenet and his aides left the meeting in frustration,
feeling as if Ms. Riice had ignored them.
http://www.nytimes.,com/2006/10/02/washington/03ricecnd.html?ei=5088&en=5b272a2b... 10/17/2006
 10/17/06 13:29 FAX [phone] NAT'L SECURITY .ARCHIVE f{3j004
Records Show Tene~l: Briefed Rice on Al Qaeda Threat -New York Times Page 2 of 3
11!ir. Tenet told me~rnbers of the Sept. it commission about the July to meeting when they
interviewed him iris early 2004, but committee members said the former C.LA. director never
indicated he had if ~ft the White House with the impression that he had been ignored.
"Tenet never told t:~s that he was brushed off," said Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democratic member
of the commission. "We certainly would have followed that up."
Mr. McCormack sa!3~id the records showed that, far from ignoring Mr. Tenet's warnings, Ms.
Rice acted on the intelligence and requested that Mr. Tenet make the same presentation to
Defense Secretary Donald?I~.,..R~msfeld and Atttorney General john Ash~~Qft.
But Mr. Ashcroft s;~id by telephone on Monday evening that he never received a briefing that
summer from Mr. 'Tenet.
"Frankly, I'm disa;F~pointed that I didn't get that kind of briefing," he said. "I'm surprised he
didn't think it was important enough to come by and tell me."
The dispute that h;~s played out in recent. days gives further evidence of an escalating battle
between the WhitE~~ House and Mr. Tenet over who should take the blame for such mistakes as
the failure to stop the Sept. it attacks and assertions by Bush administration officials that
Saddam Hussein `~ vas stockpiling chemical and biological weapons and cultivating ties to Al
Qaeda.
Mr. Tenet resigne~:l as director of central intelligence in the summer of 2004 and was honored
that December wi1,:h a Presidential Medal of Freedom during a White House ceremony. Since
leaving the C.I.A., Mr. Tenet has stayed out of the public eye, largely declining to defend his
record at the C.I.A... even after several government investigations have assailed the faulty
intelligence that ho~lped build the case for the Iraq war.
Mr. Tenet is now c~~ompleting work on a memoir that is scheduled to be published early next
year.
It is unclear how ruiuchMr. Tenet will use the book to settle old scores, although recent books
have portrayed M:i:~. Tenet both as dubious about the need for the Iraq war and angry that the
White House has ~?nade the C.I.A. the primary scapegoat for the war.
In his book "The (::-ne Percent Doctrine," the journalist and author Ran Suskind quotes Mr.
Tenet's former de~~~uty at the C.LA., John McLaughlin, saying that Mr. Tenet "wishes he could
give that damn m~;dal back."
http://www.nytimes ?com/2006/10/02/washington/03ricecnd.htmi?ei=5088&en=5b272a2b... 10/17/2006
 10/17/06 13:30 FAX [phone] NAT' L SECURITY ARCHIVE C~ 005
Records Show Teneil Briefed Rice on Al Qaeda Threat -New York Times Page 3 of 3
In his own book, ll~'[r. Woodward. wrote that overtime Mr. Tenet developed a particular dislike
for Ms. Rice, and that the former C.I.A. director was furious when she publicly blamed the
agency for allowin;i; President Bush to make the false claim in the 2003 State of the Union
Address that Sadd~l~m Hussein was pursuing nuclear materials in Niger.
"If the C.I.A., the I::)irector of National Intelligence, had said `take this out of the speech,' it
would have been g;;one, without question," Ms. Rice told reporters in July zoo3.
In fact, the C.I.A. l::l.ad told the White House months before that the. Niger intelligence was
bogus and had managed to keep the claim out of an .October 2002 speech that President Bush
gave in Cincinnati, -
More recently, Mr.. Tenet has told friends that he was particularly angry when, appearing
recently on Sundae talk shows, both Ms. Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney cited Mr. Tenet
by name as the re~,ison that Bush administration off cials asserted that Mr. Hussein had
stockpiles of banned weapons in Iraq and ties to Al Qaeda.
Mr. Cheney recall~;;~d during an appearance on "Meet the Press" on Sept. to of this year: "George
Tenet sat in the O'~~ral Office and the president of the United States asked him directly, he said,
`George, how goo~ll, is the case against Saddam on weapons of mass destruction?'the director of
the C.I.A. said, `It'~~ a slam dunk, Mr. President, it's a slam dunk.' "
Philip Shenon rep~~~rted from Jidda, Saudi Arabia, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.
~p~yriaht 2006 The New York Times Co[r~ReRy
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http://www.nytimes~.com/2006/10/02/washington/03ricecnd.html?ei=.5088&en=5b272a2b... 10/ 17/2006
 10/17/06 13:30 FAX [phone] NAT'L SECURITY ARCHIVE f~006
Tenet Recalled Waniung Rice - washingtonpost.com Page 1 of 3
~s~~~~~~~~~~i:~
Tenet Recall~eci Warning Rice
Former CIA Chief 7:~'old 9/11 Commission of Disputed
Meeting
By Dan Eggen and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff `'Jriters
Tuesday, October 3, 20(:16; A03
Former CIA directoir George Tenet told the 9/11
Commission that he had warned of an imminent threat
from al-Qaeda in a ;I'uly 2001 meeting with
Condoleezza Rice, ~:idding that he believed Rice took
the warning seriously, according to a transcript of the
interview and the re~;~ollection of a commissioner who
was there.
Tenet's statements t~:> the commission in January 2004 confirm the outlines of an event in a new book by
Washington Post A:;;sistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward that has been disputed by some Bush
administration officials. But the testimony also is at odds with Woodward's depiction of Tenet and
former CIA counterl:enrorism chief J. Cofer Black as being frustrated that "they were not getting through
to Rice" after the July 10, 2001, meeting.
Rice angrily rejecter,;t those assertions yesterday, saying that it was "incomprehensible" that. she would
have ignored such e;tiplicit intelligence from senior CIA officials and that she received no warning at the
meeting of an attacl~~: within the United States.
Rice acknowledged that the White House was. receiving a "steady stream of quite alarmist reports of
potential attacks" d;,firing that period, but said the targets were assumed to be in the Middle East,
including. Saudi Ara~:bia, Yemen, Israel and Jordan.
"What I am quite ce~:rtain of, however, is that I would remember if I was told.-- as this account
apparently says -- that there was about to be an attack in the United States," Rice said. "The idea that I
would somehow ha,~, a ignored that I find incomprehensible."
The meeting has be~~;ome the focus of a fierce and often confusing round offinger-pointing involving
Rice, the White Hol:;.se and the 9/11 Commission, all of whom dispatched staffers to the National
Archives and other Locations yesterday in attempts to sort out what had occurred.
Members of the con.unission -- an independent, bipartisan panel created by Congress to investigate the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrc:~r attacks --have said for days that they were not told about the July 10 meeting and
were angry at being left out. As recently as yesterday afternoon, both commission chairman Thomas H.
Kean and vice chairman Lee Hamilton said they believed the panel had not been told about the July 10
meeting.
But it turns out that the panel was, in fact, told about the meeting, according to the interview transcript
and Democratic con:?unission member Richard Ben-Veniste, who sat in on the interview with Tenet. The
meeting was not ide;ltified by the July 10 date in the commission's best-selling report.
http://www. washin~;tonpo st. cam/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/ 10/02/AR2006100200187_... 10/17/2006
 10/17/06 13:30 FAX [phone] NAT' L SECURITY ARCHIVE [~j 007
Tenet Recalled War:i?ung Rice - washingtonpost.com Page 2 of 3
Rice added to the cc.~nfusion yesterday by strongly suggesting that the meeting may never have occurred
at all -- even though. administration officials had conceded for several days that it had. A State
Department spokesia~an said later that while the meeting definitely happened, Rice and Tenet disputed
Woodward's characl:erization of her response.
"The briefing was a summary of the threat reporting from the previous weeks," State Department
spokesman Sean M~~-Cormack told reporters traveling with Rice in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia. "There.was
nothing new."
Despite this, McCoy?mack said, Rice asked that Tenet provide the same briefmg to Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfel~,:l and then-U.S. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft. The two men received it by July
17, he said. McConriack was unable to explain why Rice felt the briefing should be repeated if it did not
include new materi~ul.
Ashcroft said in an iinterview yesterday that he was never briefed by Tenet or Black about an imminent
domestic threat.
"I didn't get called c~~n by Black or Tenet if they were going around doing such briefings," Ashcroft said.
"If in fact they were making visits to emphasize the severity of the domestic threat, I'm a little
disappointed they diidn't bring that information to my attention."
,Neither Black nor T''enet has made any public comments about the assertions in Woodward's book.
Woodward declinedl yesterday to comment in detail, saying only that he stood by his reporting.
Tenet gave testimor:i.y about the July 2001 meeting with Rice at his Langley headquarters office on Jan.
28, 2004, occasiona,aly referring to charts and slides. Philip Zelikow, who at the time was the
commission's executive director and now works for Rice, was present along with other commission staff
members, accordinlir to Ben-Veniste and to a portion of the transcript, which was read to The
Washington Post b~~ an official with access to it.
At one point in the :Lengthy session, Tenet recalled a briefing he was given on July 10 by Black and his
staff, according to t:l:ie transcript. He said the information was so important that he quickly called for a
car and telephoned iltice to arrange for a White House meeting to share what he had just learned,
according to the transcript and Ben-Veniste.
According to the tr~i,nscript, Tenet told Rice there were signs that there could be an al-Qaeda attack in
weeks or perhaps m~.onths, that there would be multiple, simultaneous attacks causing major human
casualties, and that ~Ihe focus would be U.S. tazgets, facilities or interests. But the intelligence reporting
focused almost entir.?ely on the attacks occurring overseas,. Tenet told the commission.
It was at this sessio~:~~ that Tenet said "the system was blinking red," which became a chapter title in the
commission report, according to the official who saw the transcript.
According to three _i.~eople present at the session, including Ben-Veniste, Tenet believed that Rice
responded seriously to what she had been told. "We particularly questioned him about whether he had
the sense that Dr. Rice and the others on the White House side understood the gravity of what he was
telling them," said l?ten-Veniste, a former Watergate prosecutor. "He said that they believed that they
did.... We asked h:im further whether Dr. Rice just shrugged this off, and he said he did not have such
an impression."
http://www.washin~~tonpost.com/wp-dynlcontent/article/2006/10/02/AR200610020018? ... 10/17/2006
 10/17/06 13:31 FAX [phone] NAT'L SECURITY ARCHIVE
[boos
Tenet Recalled Wan:'ting Rice - washingtonpost.com Page 3 of 3
Ben-Veniste's comrrllents seem to contradict his own remarks over the weekend to the New York Times,
in which he said that "the meeting was never mentioned to us." Ben-Veniste said yesterday that there
was confusion betw~~;en two different meetings and that the meeting described by Tenet is different in
character from the one portrayed by Woodward.
Zelikow, who now ~~~~orks as one of Rice's closest aides as a State Department counselor, did not respond
to a request for coml:nent yesterday. He told the New York Times that none of the commission's
witnesses had drawr~l attention to a July 10 meeting or had outlined the type of confrontation with Rice
described by Wood~~~~ard.
In comments to reporters, Rice also denied that she had endorsed ousting Rumsfeld at the end of Bush's
first term, although ~~Ihe said she did tell President Bush that he might want to consider changing his
entire foreign polic}~~ team.
"I did tell the president at one point that I thought maybe all of us should go, because we had fought two
wars and had the laY;;est terrorist attack in American history," Rice said. "When he asked me to be
secretary of state, I ;,:aid I think maybe you need new people. I don't know if that was somehow
interpreted,'but what: I was actually talking about was me."
Wright reported fro,~~n Shannon; Ireland, and Jiddah, Saudi Arabia. Staff writer Walter Pincus
contributed to this r~~~port.
? 2006 The Washington Past Company
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http://www.washing~tonpost.com/wp-dyn/contentlarticle/2006/10/02/AR2006100200187_... 10/17/2006
 10/17/06 13:29 FAX [phone] NAT'L SECURITY ARCHIVE
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The National Security Archive
The George Washington University
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Date: Oct~,:>'ber 17, 200fi
To: Scci~tt Koch -- Information and Privacy Coordinator
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From: The National Security Archive
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