CIA declassifies pre-9/11 warnings — what Bush knew

The CIA has declassified 69 intelligence reports from 1998 to 2001, revealing that U.S. authorities knew for years about the threat from Al-Qaeda but failed to connect the scattered signals into a coherent picture before the September 11 attacks. The documents confirm the findings of the 9/11 Commission: a failure of imagination and a lack of coordination between intelligence agencies.

The CIA has declassified 69 intelligence reports prepared from February 1998 to September 2001, showing that U.S. authorities knew for years about the threat from Al-Qaeda but failed to connect the scattered signals into a coherent picture before the September 11 attacks. One of the most notable documents is a memo from September 10, 1998, sent to the White House under President Bill Clinton, stating that Al-Qaeda "may direct an airplane filled with explosives into a U.S. city." In July and August 2001, President George W. Bush received warnings about a planned operation, but the information remained incomplete: the reports did not mention airplanes or an attack on U.S. soil. The documents confirm the findings of the 9/11 Commission: a "failure of imagination" and serious problems with information sharing between the CIA, FBI, and other security agencies. The CIA acknowledged that the sequence of warnings did not allow for reconstructing Al-Qaeda's full plan.