Intelligence Briefing Quotes

The Central Intelligence Agency is in a rotten state. Today, Central Intelligence Agency has hardly any worthwhile operations behind the iron curtain. In their briefings they present a rosy picture to outsiders but the awful truth remains under the TOP SECRET label of the agency.

I'm with the president nearly every day. We engage in complex conversations about some of the most weighty matters facing the world. I deliver to him this exquisite product that's been developed by my officers. He engages in a way that shows his understanding of the complexity. He asks really hard questions. He delivers policy outcomes based on the information that we provide him. My observation of the president is that, we deal in serious matters.

We sit for a week and listen to an extraordinary amount of people talk about what they do in the intelligence world. It's pretty overwhelming.

As the briefer, my job is to carry CIA's best information and best analysis to the president of the United States and make sure he understands it.

For a President not to have confidence in, not to be prepared to listen to the myriad of intelligence agencies from defense intelligence, to the CIA, etcetera, is absolutely mindless. It's just mindless.

CIA will continue to pursue every lead; analyze the information we collect with critical, objective eyes; and brief reliable intelligence to protect U.S. forces deployed around the world.

Someday we'll learn the whole story of why George W. Bush brushed off that intelligence briefing of Aug. 6, 2001, 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.' But surely a big distraction was the major speech he was readying for delivery on Aug. 9, his first prime-time address to the nation.

When the intelligence is making a policymaker too happy, he ought to challenge it, and even if he doesn't, the intelligence briefer needs to launch a red team against his own conclusions to see if he can hold his ground.