Tenet hoped his abrupt request for an immediate meeting would shake Rice.
He and Black, a veteran covert operator, had two main points when they met with
her. First, al-Qaeda was going to attack American interests, possibly in the
United States itself. Black emphasized that this amounted to a strategic
warning, meaning the problem was so serious that it required an overall plan and
strategy. Second, this was a major foreign policy problem that needed to be
addressed immediately. They needed to take action that moment -- covert,
military, whatever -- to thwart bin Laden.

The United States had human and technical sources, and all the
intelligence was consistent, the two men told Rice. Black acknowledged that some
of it was uncertain "voodoo" but said it was often this voodoo that was the best
indicator.

Tenet and Black felt they were not getting through to Rice. She was polite,
but they felt the brush-off. President Bush had said he didn't want to swat at
flies.

Rice acknowledged Sunday that the White House was receiving a "steady
stream of quite alarmist reports of potential attacks" during daily meetings
from Tenet during that period. But she said the targets were assumed to be in
the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Israel and Jordan. She said no
reports mentioned the United States.

"What I am quite certain of, however, is that I would remember if I was
told -- as this account apparently says -- that there was about to be an attack
in the United States. The idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find
incomprehensible," she told reporters.