9/11 INVESTIGATION Declassified memo outlines warnings

The national security adviser had called the memo 'historical' in testimony.
WASHINGTON POST
CRAWFORD, Texas -- President Bush was warned a month before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that the FBI had information that terrorists might be preparing for a hijacking in the United States and targeting federal buildings in New York.
The information was included in a written Aug. 6, 2001, briefing to Bush that was declassified Saturday night by the White House in response to a request from the independent commission probing the Sept. 11 attacks.
The short article, titled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US," also included information that the FBI had "70 full field investigations" under way in the United States that were thought to be related to Osama bin Laden, and that a caller to the U.S. Embassy in the United Arab Emirates in May 2001 said a group of bin Laden supporters were in the United States planning attacks with explosives.
The document, citing a foreign intelligence service whose identity was blacked out, said bin Laden told followers he wanted to "retaliate in Washington" for the United States' 1998 missile attack on his facilities in Afghanistan.
Officials' comments
In a conference call Saturday with reporters, administration officials who insisted on anonymity said there was no evidence that either the call to the U.S. Embassy in the UAE or the surveillance of federal buildings in New York by Yemenis was related to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The officials said photographing of the federal buildings was later judged to be "tourist activity," but they did not say whether that judgment was made before or after the attacks.
The White House originally resisted releasing the article, part of the president's daily brief, or PDB, citing the sensitivity of intelligence information. It characterized the document as a historical summary with little current information on which the president could have acted.
In her testimony to the 9/11 commission on Thursday, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said, "this was a historical memo. ... It was not based on new threat information."
Although the two-page document included information dating to 1997, it also contained information that the government suspected Al-Qaida was actively preparing for an attack in the United States. Although it gives no information about specific targets or dates, the briefing warns that U.S. intelligence thought bin Laden had serious plans to hit the United States.
Unconfirmed information
The PDB said U.S. intelligence could not confirm "some of the more sensational threat reporting," such as information from a foreign intelligence service in 1998 saying bin Laden "wanted to hijack a US aircraft" to gain the release of U.S.-held Muslim extremists. The identity of the foreign service was removed.
"Nevertheless," it said, "FBI information since that time 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 brief continued: "The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives."
The CIA author of the document wanted to make clear to the president that despite the many threats being centered abroad, the agency analysts believed there was a real and continuing danger that Bin Laden was determined to attack the United States.
As one former administration official who has read the PDB said last week, "The agency doesn't write a headline like that if it doesn't want to get attention." In this case, the former official said, "the CIA did not believe Bush policymakers were taking the threat to the U.S. seriously."
The White House noted that the Federal Aviation Administration and FBI issued several warnings between June and September, including specific warnings about the possibility of a hijacking to free Al-Qaida members imprisoned in the United States.
The two White House officials who held the teleconference call said they would not divulge whether Bush asked questions when given the Aug. 6 briefing, saying the president's response was "confidential."
They also declined to say whether the president or others followed up on the warnings or sought more information.