In the press gaggle aboard Air Force One this afternoon, White House Press Secretary Gibbs admitted the Obama administration received and was briefed on the Bush team's review of Afghanistan.

Gibbs said he can't talk about it because the review is top secret -except to say that "some of the information was helpful" to President Obama. Gibbs concluded by saying the existence of the review wasn't the real issue anyway.

Here's the exhange:

Q    The Afghan review that the Bush administration -- or Cheney says was handed off to your administration, you said last week you would go and look at that.  What did you find when you did that, when you went and looked for the report?  Did they hand it off, and what did it say?

MR. GIBBS:  Well, I -- well, it's top secret, so I appreciate the opportunity to get into what it says.  Many members of our administration briefed people on the review's existence.  I don't think what was -- I don't think what's --

Q    Was your administration briefed?

MR. GIBBS:  With people that -- it's been public that we got these reviews.  I mean, we can show articles where these things are discussed.

While some of the information was helpful, the President obviously found it instructive to do a review of his own, and that's what Bruce Riedel did in the spring, which led to the President signing off on additional forces that went to Afghanistan.

I don't think it's the existence of the reviews that seems to be an issue here, Jon.  I think it's a focus on one area of the world at the expense of another.

For the record, this is what Emanuel told John King on October 18:

And when you go through all the analysis, it's clear that basically we had a war for eight years that was going on, that's adrift. That we're beginning at scratch, and just from the starting point, after eight years.

And:

You have literally got into a situation, is there another way you can do this? And the president is asking the questions that have never been asked on the civilian side, the political side, the military side, and the strategic side. What is the impact on the region? What can the Afghan government do or not do? Where are we on the police training? Who would be better doing the police training? Could that be something the Europeans do? Should we take the military side? Those are the questions that have not been asked. And before you commit troops, which is -- not irreversible, but puts you down a certain path -- before you make that decision, there's a set of questions that have to have answers that have never been asked. And it's clear after eight years of war, that's basically starting from the beginning, and those questions never got asked.

All emphasis added.  Contra Gibbs, it's pretty clear Emanuel was saying that Bush's team hadn't done squat on Afghanistan: they hadn't asked any tough questions or conducted any analysis of tactics and strategy. They basically threw the problem in Obama's lap, forcing him to "start from scratch." It's also pretty clear, as we now know, that just wasn't true.