President Incurious, Satisfied

CRAWFORD, Texas - On the defensive, President Bush (news - web sites) said Monday there was no warning in a pre-Sept. 11 intelligence memo that "something is about to happen in America" before the nation's worst terrorism attack. He said U.S. intelligence services may be due for reforms.

...

At the center of the brouhaha is an intelligence memo from Aug. 6, 2001, showing that Bush received reports from as recent as May 2001 about possible terrorist plots in the United States.

The memo specifically told Bush that al-Qaida operatives had reached American shores, had a support system in place and were engaging in "patterns of suspicious activity ... consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks." It did not provide specific times or places for potential attacks.

...

The document has "nothing about an attack on America. It talked about intentions, about somebody who hated America — well, we knew that," Bush said Sunday.

"I was satisfied that some of the matters were being looked into" and had any specific intelligence pointed to threats of attacks on New York and Washington, "I would have moved mountains" to prevent it, Bush said during a visit to Fort Hood, Texas, 50 miles from his ranch here.

...

The memo's contents are somewhat of a surprise because for two years, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice starting with a May 2002 news conference left the impression that the document focused on historical information and that any current threats mostly involved overseas targets.