One of the most important moments of the today's hearings came from a 9/11 Commission member (sorry, forgot who) who said that the CIA admitted that the just declassified CIA memo about Al Qaeda threats to the American homeland was written as a response to a question by the President and was not, as the CIA claimed in their earlier testimony self-generated. It seems that the President had the"troublesome" tendency to ask question -- the Iraq Al Qaeda one was not a unique event.

Unfortunately, the Presidential prodding did not"intimidate" the CIA officials to a sufficient degree to raise their alert level anymore than repeated questions about Bin Laden by members of the Clinton administration persuaded those officials to reevaluate their dismissal of Bin Laden as a"mere financier" of terrorism. In other words, the problem is not that the White House sought to intimidate the CIA but that the CIA stubbornly refused to check their assumptions.

Heads there should roll. The sooner the better as the current trouble in Iraq demonstrates yet again. An intelligence overhaul is a must.