White House hints Bush 'brainwashed' by Presidential Daily Briefs — developing…

The White House attempts to rebut these assertions….

The Washington Post Implies That The Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) Was Superior To The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) Given To Congress. "But Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also, the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of force in that country."

….with these excerpts from the Robb-Silberman report:

But The PDB Was The Focus Of Intelligence Reform And Was More "Problematic" Than The NIE Given To Congress.

The Robb-Silberman Commission Found The PDB To Contain Similar Intelligence In "More Alarmist" And "Less Nuanced" Language. "As problematic as the October 2002 NIE was, it was not the Community's biggest analytic failure on Iraq. Even more misleading was the river of intelligence that flowed from the CIA to top policymakers over long periods of time--in the President's Daily Brief (PDB) and in its more widely distributed companion, the Senior Executive Intelligence Brief (SEIB). These daily reports were, if anything, more alarmist and less nuanced than the NIE."

The Robb-Silberman Commission Reported That The Intelligence In The PDB Was Not "Markedly Different" Than The Intelligence Given To Congress In The NIE. "It was not that the intelligence was markedly different. Rather, it was that the PDBs and SEIBs, with their attention-grabbing headlines and drumbeat of repetition, left an impression of many corroborating reports where in fact there were very few sources…."

All those attention-grabbing headlines and the trancifying drumbeat of repetition wore down Bush's pacifist instincts.

Bush was brainwashed — and tortured-lite, too, judging by his frequently bruised face — into invading Iraq.

The question now is: by whom?