The CIA on Friday declassified several dozen presidential daily briefs detailing intelligence gathered about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida before the Sept. 11 attacks, marking the attacks’ 25th anniversary. The records include a Sept. 12, 2001, report in which a source indicated that the attacks had been planned for two years and had also targeted the U.S. Capitol.
The documents describe analysts’ efforts to track bin Laden’s movements and support system, along with concerns about possible threats to U.S. targets. The Sept. 11 hijackings killed nearly 3,000 people and transformed American national security.
“an act of exceptional transparency”
CIA Director John Ratcliffe used that description for the release and said it was the agency’s single largest disclosure of declassified presidential daily briefs. The briefs are highly classified intelligence reports prepared for the federal government’s most senior leaders.
The released material ranges from a February 1998 document prepared for then-President Bill Clinton, titled “Terrorists seeking WMD capability,” which mentioned “bin Ladin and other Islamic extremists,” to the report issued one day after the attacks. Another document, prepared only weeks before Sept. 11, said al-Qaida’s flexible operational decision-making and broad definition of acceptable targets allowed the group to adjust plans as conditions changed.
The White House, asked about the CIA disclosure, pointed to a separate group of records released Friday by the National Archives. That collection includes interviews with national security officials from the Clinton and Bush administrations and was produced by the commission that investigated the attacks from 2002 to 2004.