CIA Releases Never-Before-Seen Intelligence On 9/11 Terror Attacks

Three years before the September 11 terrorist attacks, U.S. intelligence warned President Bill Clinton’s administration that Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda could attempt to attack an American city with an “explosive-laden plane.”

That portentous warning is contained in a newly declassified intelligence report released Friday by the CIA as part of the agency’s largest-ever public release of analysis related to the 9/11 attacks.

The CIA released 71 President’s Daily Briefs, files covering the period from February 1998 through September 12, 2001, giving the public an unprecedented look at what intelligence officials were telling presidents about bin Laden and al-Qaeda in the years leading up to the attacks.

The documents include a September 10, 1998, report titled “Bin Laden’s Location and Intentions,” which warned that al-Qaeda “may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a U.S. city.” The intelligence did not know the precise details of the eventual September 11 plot, including the targets, timing, or use of multiple hijacked commercial aircraft, but the newly public documents show that American intelligence agencies had repeatedly warned successive administrations that bin Laden was seeking to strike the United States.

The 1998 warning was one of a series of reports that now appear particularly significant in hindsight. A July 1998 report told President Clinton that reports from several sources indicating bin Laden intended to attack the United States were “plausible,” while a 1999 assessment examined whether the large number of potential al-Qaeda targets being reported could have represented an intentional deception campaign.

By October 2000, another intelligence report stated that bin Laden was “committed to striking U.S. targets,” while noting that the CIA could not pinpoint the targets or timing.

And just over a month before the attacks, July 24, 2001, one such report told President George W. Bush that an “expected imminent bin Laden-sponsored terrorist operation” had been postponed, while warning that preparations for other attacks could still be underway.

The documents also include the now-famous August 6, 2001, presidential briefing titled “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US,” which had previously been released and warned that bin Laden had been preparing operations against the United States for years. The newly released material provides additional context for that warning and shows that it was part of a much longer series of intelligence assessments about al-Qaeda.

The CIA said the documents demonstrate the difficulty intelligence officials faced in distinguishing meaningful warnings from incomplete, contradictory, and sometimes unreliable information.

Before 9/11, counterterrorism was not yet the dominant intelligence priority it would become after the attacks. CIA analysts had information indicating that bin Laden wanted to attack the United States, but they often lacked specific details about the location and timing of an attack.

The agency also faced concerns about “warning fatigue,” with officials worried about repeatedly alerting policymakers to potential attacks without enough concrete information to explain how the threats could be stopped.

The 9/11 Commission ultimately concluded that American intelligence agencies had provided numerous warnings about al-Qaeda but failed to understand the scale and immediacy of the threat. The commission described the failure in part as one of “imagination,” alongside problems involving intelligence collection, information sharing, and the government’s response to the warnings. The newly declassified documents do not fundamentally alter that conclusion.

The CIA said the release contains more than 100 pages of analysis that are now publicly available for the first time. “Today, [CIA] Director John Ratcliffe declassified 71 President’s Daily Brief products in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks,” the agency said. The agency described the release as its “single largest release of declassified CIA PDB products related to 9/11.”

“Twenty-five years ago, the 9/11 attacks struck a blow to our Nation, but they did not break us,” Ratcliffe wrote in the release. “Generations of CIA officers have since dedicated their careers to securing justice for our fallen Americans and ensuring al-Qaida would never again harm our country.” Ratcliffe also said the release was intended to honor both the Americans killed in the attacks and CIA officers who later died during the war against terrorism.

The President’s Daily Brief is among the most sensitive intelligence products produced for the White House. It provides the president and a limited number of senior officials with intelligence analysis concerning threats and other national-security matters.

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