Newly released CIA files show Clinton and Bush received repeated alerts before 9/11 attacks

The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. (Photo/Reuters)

The CIA has published 71 declassified items from daily intelligence briefings given to US presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush related to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, calling this the largest release of such material to date.

The documents, posted on the agency's website on Friday to mark marking the attacks’ 25th anniversary, span February 13, 1998 to September 12, 2001 and trace the intelligence community's tracking of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda — the terror group he led, which carried out the attacks — in the runup to 9/11 attacks.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed when al Qaeda hijackers crashed planes into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, in 2001.

The earliest brief, "Terrorists Seeking WMD Capability," is dated February 13, 1998.

Subsequent releases include "Reports That Bin Ladin is Planning Attacks Inside the US" (July 3, 1998), "Bin Ladin's Location and Intentions" (September 10, 1998), and "Bin Ladin Preparing To Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks" (December 4, 1998).

A September 10, 1998, memo, "Bin Ladin's Location and Intentions," said bin Laden had told associates that his preferred option was to strike the US "on its own soil in Washington," adding that the same network responsible for the 1998 East Africa Embassy bombings "may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a US city."

A brief from February 13, 1998, titled "Terrorists seeking WMD capability," said bin Laden had "agreed to procure unspecified chemical, biological and nuclear substances from open markets," adding that his followers had previously sought material allegedly to target US military installations in Saudi Arabia.

A December 4, 1998, memo, "Bin Laden Preparing To Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks," said reporting suggested bin Laden and his allies were preparing US attacks, including a hijacking to secure the release of high-profile al-Qaeda members.

It also cited a source indicating that a hijacker cell had evaded security checks during a "recent trial run" at an unnamed New York airport.

'Single largest release of CIA analysis'

A December 23, 1999 brief, "Terrorism: Diverse Groups Planning Anti-US Attacks," said the CIA was monitoring threats worldwide, with bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and allied groups posing the greatest concern.

Intelligence reports to the White House showed the Taliban would not expel Bin Laden.

The "Taliban is not likely to give up bin Laden for less than full diplomatic recognition and significant reconstruction aid," said an intelligence memo from March 26, 2001.

On May 2, 2011, US special forces killed bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, nearly 10 years after the 2001 attacks.

US President George W. Bush took office in January 2001, several months before the attacks that September, succeeding Bill Clinton, who had served two terms in the Oval Office.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe called the files "the single largest release of CIA analysis related to 9/11 ever."

"Americans can now see for themselves the intelligence leading up to this tragic day for our Nation," Ratcliffe wrote on X.

After the attacks, the US established a 9/11 Commission that revealed systemic failures in communication, imagination, and management across the US government allowed the September 11 attacks to happen.

The September 11 attacks served as a catalyst for the US' so-called "War on Terror", which included the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and led to the deaths of an estimated 4.5 to 4.7 million people, according to Brown University's Costs of War project.

___

Source: TRT