Jan. 24 (Bloomberg) -- The White House is still scrambling to douse the political firestorm ignited by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau with their Dec. 16 New York Times article disclosing that the National Security Agency had begun eavesdropping without court warrants on Americans after 9/11.

Less than a month later, Risen returned to the subject in a book, ``State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration'' (Free Press, 240 pages, $26). It's an earnest, often thought-provoking view of ``how the most covert tools of American national security policy have been misused,'' Risen writes. But it's ultimately a problematic companion to the pre- Christmas scoop.

For one thing, events of the past month have inevitably overtaken the book: President George W. Bush's confirmation of the NSA program, the Justice Department's investigation of who leaked the story, a call for congressional hearings, a 42-page legal brief from Justice and a full-court press from the White House, including scheduled speeches this week by Bush, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and former NSA Director General Michael Hayden.

While Risen is a skilled journalist -- gaining access to former and current intelligence officials who have spoken at risk to themselves, including potential jail time -- some of the avoidable flaws here also are journalistic, including gaps in sourcing, information and logic. (Note to publisher: Correct the inaccurate reference to ``National Security Administration'' on the book jacket.)

CIA and Iraq

A member of the Times team that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for explanatory reporting of the 9/11 attacks and terrorism, Risen focuses on the CIA, which works overseas, and on the NSA, the nation's largest intelligence branch. It's responsible for electronic eavesdropping and interception of usually just foreign conversations, e-mail and other communications.

Risen explores the prewar climate in the CIA as it addressed the question of weapons of mass destruction. Contrary to the consensus at the CIA and intelligence agencies worldwide that Iraq had an active WMD program, ``many CIA officials -- from rank and file analysts to senior managers -- knew before the war that they lacked sufficient evidence.''

The chapter on ``The Program,'' the NSA's post-9/11 eavesdropping, is the book's centerpiece and worth the purchase. To Risen, the NSA operation is part of a ``disquieting pattern'' by the Bush administration to skirt or ignore ``long-standing rules governing the military and intelligence communities'' that ``may be violating the civil liberties of American citizens.''

Tapping Into Telecom

Although the Times story steals fire from it, the chapter is still a useful primer on NSA tradecraft and how the agency has exploited -- with assistance from ``major telecommunications companies'' -- the global flood of e-mail and voice communications that flows through U.S. networks.

One tidbit not in the Times piece is that the ``major telecommunications companies'' have made it ``easy for the agency to eavesdrop on large numbers of people in the United States without their knowledge.''

That's accomplished by allowing the NSA access to large U.S.-based telecommunications switches carrying the bulk of America's phone calls and, more important, to foreign phone calls and e-mail from the Middle East to Asia that are routed through those switches. Risen doesn't name the companies or cooperative executives.

As intriguing as these revelations may be, many of the episodes meant to illustrate a ``secret history'' of agencies running amok suffer from scant details and too many unnamed ``U.S. sources,'' ``American sources'' and ``CIA officials.'' Risen offers a lot of loose ends without weaving them into a coherent, believable tapestry.

Bush and the Painkillers

The worst example is Risen's account of how a ``well-placed source with a proven track record'' relayed a conversation between President Bush and CIA Director George Tenet in March 2002. During a discussion about wounded top-level al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah, Bush asked Tenet, ``Who authorized putting him on painkillers?''

Risen doesn't say whether this source was present during the talk. He goes on to concede that the exchange ``has been challenged'' and that it's unclear whether the president was ``implicitly encouraging the director of Central Intelligence to order the harsh treatment of prisoners.''

Yet within a page, Risen tacitly links the conversation to legal opinions that set the climate for the documented abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Previously `Unreported'

Overall, there are too many instances in which Risen tantalizes with previously ``unreported'' claims that sound too good to be true and raise questions about why the New York Times or another major news organization hasn't previously disclosed them. For instance:

-- Vice President Dick Cheney, during one unspecified weekend before the war, called the Dutch prime minister, who isn't named, to ask his cooperation in recruiting an Iraqi agent in the Netherlands. The prime minister said no.

-- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the most important al-Qaeda prisoner in U.S. custody, has recanted parts of his CIA interrogations.

-- U.S. troops have been involved in firefights with Pakistani soldiers along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, but ``both sides have largely covered up the incidents.''

Whether the insights and information of Risen's book offset the flaws and rush-to-print feel, there's no question that ``State of War'' carries a powerful, timely warning about potential abuses of power in the global war on terrorism.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tony Capaccio at acapaccio@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 24, 2006 00:10 EST