CIA releases pre-9/11 intelligence to White House
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The gist
The CIA released pre-9/11 presidential daily briefs on al Qaeda and bin Laden.
The documents show warnings reached the White House years before the attacks.
Background
The release marks the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The documents cover February 1998 to Sept. 12, 2001, drawn from daily intelligence briefings given to Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The CIA's standard practice is to release such presidential briefs only after about 40 years, to protect sources and limit tension with allies. The material reinforces the 2004 findings of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: intelligence agencies warned about al Qaeda consistently but failed to grasp the scale of the planned attack.
How it unfolded
- Sep 10, 1998A presidential intelligence brief to President Bill Clinton's White House contained a CIA analyst's assessment that a group associated with Osama bin Laden 'may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a U.S. city.'
- Aug 3, 1999An intelligence memo noted that bin Laden operatives' ongoing activity reflected the resilience of his organization and that his personnel were still planning attacks in scattered locations such as Washington.
- Sep 12, 2001A separate intelligence report was drafted in the pre-dawn hours of Sept. 12, 2001, the day after the attacks.
- Sep 11, 2026The CIA declassified and released presidential daily briefs on al Qaeda and bin Laden, marking the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. The National Archives also released another batch of documents, including interviews with national security officials from the Clinton and Bush administrations.
Who’s saying what
- Official
- CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the documents were released to honor those killed on Sept. 11 and CIA officers who later gave their lives, calling it 'the single largest release of CIA analysis related to 9/11 ever' and 'an act of exceptional transparency.'
- Expert
- Intelligence community historian Jeffrey Rogg noted that 'even if one element of the agency is screaming about a threat, it's still a pretty big organization.'
- Public
- Terry Strada, a 9/11 widow, broke with the tradition of keeping politics out of Sept. 11 remembrances and called on President Donald Trump to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for the attacks.