Late 2002-Early 2003: CIA Staffers Reportedly Warn Bush That Intel on Iraq Is Weaker Than He Thinks

James Risen’s State of War. [Source: Simon and Schuster]According to a senior former CIA official interviewed by journalist James Risen, frustrated CIA staffers go to President Bush and inform him that the President’s Daily Briefs delivered by George Tenet had left out reports raising questions about the agency’s intelligence on Iraq’s alleged arsenal of WMD. Risen says in his book State of War that this suggests “that the President’s Daily Brief [never] reflected the level of skepticism about the quality of the intelligence that was widespread within the CIA.” [Risen, 2006, pp. 183-184]