WASHINGTON, September 12 — The CIA has released seventy-one intelligence reports from the years before the September 11 attacks, a document dump that lands one day after ceremonies marking a quarter-century since the strikes and offers a fresh look at what the agency told two presidents about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe called it “the single largest release of CIA analysis related to 9/11 ever.” In a statement, he said: “25 years ago, the 9/11 attacks struck a blow to our Nation, but they did not break us. Generations of CIA officers have since dedicated their careers to securing justice for our fallen Americans and ensuring al-Qa’ida would never again harm our country.” The trove is dominated by assessments prepared for the President’s Daily Brief, the morning digest distributed to the president and senior administration officials.
Seventy of the documents predate the attacks; one is dated the day after. Two had already been made public during the 9/11 Commission’s investigation.
What the analysts were writing
The earliest document, dated Feb. 13, 1998, reported that bin Laden and other Islamic extremists “met [redacted] and agreed to procure unspecified chemical, biological, and nuclear substances from open markets.” It added that bin Laden “has legitimate companies, business relationships, and a financial empire that could assist his pursuit of” those weapons.
A separate report from the same month described a fatwa issued by bin Laden and others “calling for all Muslims to attack US interests and civilians worldwide until the US ‘retreats’ from Saudi Arabia and ‘Palestine.’” Bin Laden and his fighters were based in Afghanistan under Taliban protection, and several documents examine why the Taliban harboured him.
An October 1999 report claimed bin Laden had “made a substantial investment in 57 narcotics laboratories associated with” Mullah Omar, the Taliban’s head, and had recruited experts “to develop more addictive drugs — possibly ecstasy or methamphetamine.” The 9/11 Commission later found “no reliable evidence that Bin Ladin was involved in or made his money through drug trafficking.” That is the detail that matters here: the raw reporting was not always the settled record.
The memo that named the method
A memo dated Sept. 10, 1998, warned that extremists “may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a US city,” while conceding the available intelligence “provides no conclusive information on Bin Ladin’s intentions for future attacks.” It noted bin Laden “said his preferred option is to strike the US on its own soil in Washington.” The 9/11 Commission’s final report referenced that memo and concluded the Counterterrorist Center did not subsequently “analyze how an aircraft, hijacked or explosives-laden, might be used as a weapon.” Had it done so, the commission found, it “would soon have spotlighted a critical constraint for the terrorists — finding a suicide operative able to fly large jet aircraft.” By the summer of 2001 the picture was deteriorating.
A memo dated July 24 said that “[redacted] indicates that an expected imminent Bin Ladin-sponsored terrorist operation has been postponed, but preparations for other near-term attacks may still be in train.” Then-CIA Director George Tenet told the commission the system was “blinking red.” Friday’s release includes the August 2001 memo titled “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US,” declassified in 2004 at the commission’s request.
It stated that FBI information “indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.” The commission noted the memo “was the 36th PDB item briefed so far that year that related to Bin Ladin or al Qaeda, and the first devoted to the possibility of an attack in the United States.” Eighteen of the released items date from the Bush administration.
Nearly all carry redactions, which will shape how much independent researchers can extract from the set. Watch for pressure to release cleaner versions, and for the commission’s own findings to be read against the raw analysis now on the record.
