NEWSWEEK has learned that, after battling for months over demands by a national commission investigating the 9/11 terror attacks to see PDBs, White House lawyers were angry last week when Senate investigators looking at pre-Iraq- war intelligence pressed to see them as well. The mounting requests have played into the arguments of White House hard-liners who insist any accommodation on PDBs will set a dangerous precedent; one insider calls the documents the “crown jewels” of executive privilege. But political aides are nervous about the perception of stonewalling–and a possible erosion of support on Capitol Hill. Senate intelligence chair Pat Roberts–a strong Bush ally–is now irritated by White House foot-dragging on Iraqi intel documents. Democrats on the panel may push for a subpoena. (The CIA and State Department last week agreed to turn over other long-requested material.)
Meanwhile, the 9/11 commission is threatening its own subpoena for PDBs shown to Bush in the summer of 2001. So far, commissioners have refused to accept an offer to let only the panel’s chair and vice chair, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, review them in private. One source described White House lawyers as “beleaguered” over the PDB issue. A top aide agreed: “The hits just keep coming.”
