Hersh: Bush Told Olmert Of NIE Two Days Before President Was Allegedly First Briefed On It

"...Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker’s Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative journalist, revealed that Bush actually knew about the NIE at least two days earlier and had a “private discussion” about it with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert before the Middle East peace summit in Annapolis, MD, last week."

Transcript:

BLITZER: But you were suggesting that there was a real run-up to war developing within the administration, even as there were some in the administration — the intelligence community — suggesting, Hey, hold off. Maybe they did suspend or freeze their nuclear weapons program.

HERSH: Well, of course. I think it’s still not over.

BLITZER: Because I want to press you on this. Does that mean, now that this new NIE has been released publicly, it is over, the run-up to a potential military confrontation with Iran?

HERSH: Well, there’s always Israel.

BLITZER: What’s that mean?

HERSH: Well, it means that Israel can always decide to take military action, or with us covertly. Israel objects to this report. I’m told that Olmert had a private discussion with Bush about it during Annapolis — before Annapolis. Bush briefed him about it. The Israelis were very upset about the report. They think we’re naive, they don’t think we get it right. And so they have a different point of view.