Eric Lichtblau, one of the two reporters who wrote the Swift story, told me the administration briefed a limited number of Congressional leaders — apparently from both parties, but not the full intelligence or banking committees — toward the beginning of the program.
3.09pm BST Julian Lewis, a Conservative, asks if intelligence committee could see the full intelligence on Syria.
The administration only briefed the full intelligence committees recently, apparently after the program appeared likely to become public.
This decision for an increased threat condition designation is based on specific intelligence received and analyzed by the full intelligence community.
The subcommittee was created as part of a plan by Roberts to head off calls for an investigation of the NSA monitoring by the full intelligence committee.
The C.I.A. directorship is a diminished post, no longer in charge of the full intelligence community and subordinate to the Director of National Intelligence (who will apparently be Dennis Blair, a retired admiral).
If we were expecting doubts and regrets from Tony Blair, there were none, apart from a grudging admission that it would have been better to publish the full intelligence briefing, rather than compose the "dodgy" dossier.
While the C.I.A. briefing to Congress was explicitly represented as the view of the full "intelligence community," it apparently did not reflect the more urgent views of nuclear intelligence analysts in the Energy Department and the Pentagon, according to people present.
The latest revelations come shortly before Congress is to begin debating a bill that will remove the president's right to decide when to give the full intelligence committees access to the most sensitive intelligence.
Federal law does provide, however, for notification of fewer lawmakers than the full intelligence committees, but only when "extraordinary circumstances affecting vital interests of the United States" are at stake.
