The Bush Administration likes to say that national security leaks to the press endanger American security.

This pretty much kills that meme: Ex-New York Times Judith Miller (of Plamegate fame) reveals in an interview that, back in July 2001, an anonymous White House source leaked top-secret NSA intelligence to her that Al Qaida was planning a major attack on the United States.

This is how she tells it:

"The people in the counter-terrorism (CT) office were very worried about attacks here in the United States, and that was, it struck me, another debate in the intelligence community. Because a lot of intelligence people did not believe that Al Qaida had the ability to strike within the United States. The CT people thought they were wrong. But I got the sense at that time that the counter-terrorism people in the White House were viewed as extremist on these views."

"Everyone in Washington was very spun-up in the CT world at that time. I think everybody knew that an attack was coming — everyone who followed this. But you know you can only ‘cry wolf’ within a newspaper or, I imagine, within an intelligence agency, so many times before people start saying there he goes — or there she goes — again!

Why was this information leaked to the press?  BECAUSE BUSH WASN’T PAYING ATTENTION!:

"Sometimes, you wonder about why people tell you things and why people … we always wonder why people leak things, but that’s a very common motivation in Washington. I remember once when I was a reporter in Egypt, and someone from the agency gave me very good material on terrorism and local Islamic groups.

"I said, ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you giving this to me?’ and he said, ‘I just can’t get my headquarters to pay attention to me, but I know that if it’s from the New York Times, they’re going to give it a good read and ask me questions about it.’ And there’s also this genuine concern about how, if only the president shared the sense of panic and concern that they did, more would be done to try and protect the country.

Emphasis mine.  This, of course, confirms what Richard Clarke and George Tenet have been saying all along — in the summer of 2001, they were running around trying to get the Bush Administration to take seriously all the al Qaeda "chatter" of an impending attack.

But here’s the really bizarre part.  WHY DID AL QAEDA WANT TO ATTACK US?

This has been a heavily debated, almost-philosophical issue, and usually the answer (from the Administration, that is) is that they "hate our freedoms" — a wholly incomplete and facile answer if I ever heard one.

Turns out, it’s also (according to Miller) the incorrect answer:

"But I did manage to have a conversation with a source that weekend. The person told me that there was some concern about an intercept that had been picked up. The incident that had gotten everyone’s attention was a conversation between two members of Al Qaida. And they had been talking to one another, supposedly expressing disappointment that the United States had not chosen to retaliate more seriously against what had happened to the Cole. And one Al Qaida operative was overheard saying to the other, ‘Don’t worry; we’re planning something so big now that the U.S. will have to respond.’

"And I was obviously floored by that information. I thought it was a very good story: (1) the source was impeccable; (2) the information was specific, tying Al Qaida operatives to, at least, knowledge of the attack on the Cole; and (3) they were warning that something big was coming, to which the United States would have to respond. This struck me as a major page one-potential story.

"I remember going back to work in New York the next day and meeting with my editor Stephen Engelberg. I was rather excited, as I usually get about information of this kind, and I said, ‘Steve, I think we have a great story. And the story is that two members of Al Qaida overheard on an intercept (and I assumed that it was the National Security Agency, because that’s who does these things) were heard complaining about the lack of American response to the Cole, but also … contemplating what would happen the next time, when there was, as they said, the impending major attack that was being planned. They said this was such a big attack that the U.S. would have to respond.’

Now read that last part again.  The terrorists struck us so that we would respond, i.e., bomb the crap out of the Middle East, which would foment anger and hostility toward the United States.

Man, did George bite down hard on that one!