Not Present: Former CIA Director Says President's Daily Intelligence Briefings Are Valuable

 

Ronald Kessler, the veteran journalist and author of several books on the CIA, the FBI and the Secret Service, and a columnist for Newsmax.com, interviewed former CIA director Michael Hayden about the report that President Obama has passed on 56 percent of his daily intelligence briefing.

As it turns out, the Barack Obama who usually voted “present” in the Senate on any controversial issue has been skipping intelligence briefings as president 56 percent of the time.

Asked about that this week, White House press Secretary Jay Carney said Obama reads the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) every day. Asked if there was a distinction between reading the document and participating in the daily meetings, Carney did not answer but defended the president’s record on national security.

Without commenting on Obama, former CIA Director Michael Hayden describes to Newsmax how valuable the briefings were to President Bush. Typically, the briefings lasted half an hour.
“The briefings of Bush were incredibly interactive,” Hayden says. “There was rich give and take, so that not only did the president get the advantage of knowing the analysts’ innermost thoughts, but they [the analysts] also were able to leave the room understanding what the president believed he needed in order to make the kind of decisions he had to make.”
You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/CIA-Director-Intelligence-Briefings/2012/09/13/id/451714