USA · updated 56m ago · 3 min read
CIA Releases 71 Declassified Reports Warning al-Qaeda Could Fly Explosive Airplanes Before 9/11
CIA released 71 declassified intelligence reports from pre-9/11 period to Presidents Clinton and Bush. Documents warned that al-Qaeda could use explosive airplanes to attack U.S. cities years before 9/11.
Whether the documents change conclusions versus highlight failures.
7 of 8 outlets skipped it: CIA warned Y2K glitches could facilitate opportunistic attacks.
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CNN
“The documents do not fundamentally change intelligence historians’ understanding of what the US government knew before the attacks”Read the original ↗
New York Post
“buttress post-attack assessments that Washington did too little to counteract bin Laden’s Islamist terror band”Read the original ↗
CNN treats the files as historically consistent and not transformational. The New York Post stresses a failure to counter bin Laden before 9/11.
CIA declassifies 9/11 warnings
The CIA on Friday released 71 intelligence reports from the months and years leading up to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, spanning assessments prepared for the President's Daily Brief distributed to Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
“The CIA on Friday released 71 intelligence reports”
CBS News said the release included 70 documents from before the 2001 attacks and one report from the day after, with the earliest document dated Feb. 13, 1998.
BBC reported that the CIA released 71 daily presidential briefs spanning from early 1998 to the day after the attacks, and that 69 of the documents had never been seen by the public.
In the declassified material, the CIA warned in a Sept. 10, 1998, memo that extremists "may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a US city," and the BBC said the warning was discussed years before the hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the disclosure was "the single largest release of CIA analysis related to 9/11 ever," framing it as a new look at what the spy agency told two presidents about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden before the deadly strikes.
What the documents said
The BBC said one briefing document dated 10 September 1998 reported Bin Laden's preferred location for a strike was within the US, with Washington a prime target, and that a CIA analyst wrote the group "may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a US city".
CNN en Español described the same warning as a presidential intelligence report delivered on September 10, 1998, saying a group linked to Osama bin Laden "could crash an aircraft loaded with explosives into an American city."C
CNN en Español also said the CIA declassified and published more than 100 pages of daily presidential briefing reports delivered to Clinton and George W. CBush about the threat of Al Qaeda and bin Laden in the period leading up to 9/11.
The CBS News account said the assessments were included in the PDB given to Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and that nearly all the documents released Friday include redactions.
CBS News added that a Sept. 10, 1998, memo warned extremists "may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a US city," while also including the disclaimer that the available intelligence "provides no conclusive information on Bin Ladin's intentions for future attacks."
Aftermath and what’s at risk
The CIA release comes as the 9/11 anniversary is marked with ceremonies tied to the Pentagon and other attack sites, and the Associated Press is cited in the Arabic-language report as noting that 9/11 reshaped U.S. foreign and homeland security policy.
“Although a sector of the agency repeatedly warns of a threat, it remains a very large organization”
The BBC said the CIA released 71 daily presidential briefs spanning from early 1998 to the day after the attacks, and it described the briefs as among the most secretive intelligence analyses in the US government that typically remain classified for 40 or 50 years after publication.
CNN en Español said the documents do not substantially alter the interpretation that intelligence historians have of what the U.S. CGovernment knew before the attacks, and it pointed to a 2004 report by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
In that context, CNN en Español quoted Jeffrey Rogg saying, "Although a sector of the agency repeatedly warns of a threat, it remains a very large organization," linking the warnings to how the CIA operated.C
The CBS News report said the release coincided with the 25th anniversary of the attacks and included a statement from Ratcliffe that "Generations of CIA officers have since dedicated their careers" to securing justice for fallen Americans and ensuring al-Qa'ida would never again harm the country.