Bill Clinton’s White House was warned that Osama bin Laden wanted to crash a bomb-packed plane into an American city three years to the day before the hijackers struck, explosive new CIA files reveal.
The warning was a part of a September 10, 1998 report prepared for senior Clinton White House officials cleared to read the president’s most secret morning intelligence digest, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Headlined ‘Bin Laden’s Location and Intentions,’ it offered no date or target, but made clear the terror chief had Washington DC in his sights. Bin Laden’s terrorists would later crash an airplane into the Pentagon three years later.
Other papers show analysts told the White House in July 1998 that a bin Laden strike on the US was ‘plausible,’ and in October 2000 that he remained ‘committed’ to hitting American targets, though spies ‘cannot pinpoint targets or timing.’
The revelation surfaced as Clinton was at Ground Zero for the 25th anniversary, standing among the very families whose loved ones died in the attack the memo foreshadowed.
In 2001 , bin Laden was featured in at least 18 separate editions of President Bush’s daily intelligence digest, seven of them landing on Bush’s desk weeks before the towers fell.
One July 24, 2001 memo even flagged that an ‘expected imminent’ bin Laden operation had been postponed, while cautioning that other attacks could still be in motion.
The 71 documents were released by the CIA to mark a quarter-century since nearly 3,000 people were murdered in New York City, the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field.
Bill Clinton’s White House was warned that Osama bin Laden wanted to crash a bomb-packed plane into an American city three years to the day before the hijackers struck, explosive new CIA files reveal
Headlined ‘Bin Laden’s Location and Intentions,’ it offered no date or target, but made clear the terror chief had Washington DC in his sights
In 2001 , bin Laden was featured in at least 18 separate editions of President Bush’s daily intelligence digest, seven of them landing on Bush’s desk weeks before the towers fell
The revelation surfaced as Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden gathered at Ground Zero for the 25th anniversary, standing among the very families whose loved ones died in the attack the memo foreshadowed
9/11 – THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY: READ ALL OUR COVERAGE
The 9/11 Commission had mentioned the 1998 memo, but never disclosed it had been written for the president’s own briefing stream.
Former acting CIA chief Michael Morell told the Wall Street that the documents prove the agency delivered ‘long and loud strategic warnings’ that two administrations failed to act upon.
But agency insiders told the outlet that the intelligence at the time was often thin and drawn from ‘highly questionable sources.’
The lack of certainty, insiders told WSJ, made it difficult for policymakers to respond to a potential plot with no time, place or method.
However, one CIA analyst claimed that counterterrorism operations were not a presidential priority before 9/11, and the agency lacked the manpower to dismantle bin Laden’s terror network.
Bin Laden had played a key role in the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe hailed the dump as the largest release of the agency’s 9/11 analysis ever, calling it an act of transparency to honor the dead.
Just hours earlier at Ground Zero, 9/11 widow Terry Strada accused ‘administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today’ of protecting Saudi Arabia, and urged Trump to release the unredacted files on the kingdom’s alleged role.
Conservative Representative Anna Paulina Luna, who chairs the House task force pushing for the declassification of federal secrets, told followers on X she had been tipped that 9/11 files would be made public.
