ALERT: CIA Declassifies Never Before Seen Presidential Intel Docs About 9/11

The CIA has declassified 71 President’s Daily Brief products related to the years leading up to the September 11 attacks, giving the public its largest single release of CIA presidential briefing material tied to 9/11.

The release contains more than 100 pages of intelligence analysis, much of it publicly available for the first time. The documents trace what analysts were telling presidents and senior officials about Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida and the growing threat of attacks against American interests.

Several titles are striking in hindsight. The collection includes a July 1998 brief on reports that bin Laden was planning attacks inside the United States, a September 1998 brief on bin Laden’s infrastructure in North America and a December 1998 product titled “Bin Ladin Preparing To Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks.” Another 1998 briefing included reporting about the possibility of an aircraft packed with explosives being used against a U.S. city.

The documents do not demonstrate that U.S. intelligence possessed the complete September 11 plot and knowingly allowed it to proceed. The CIA describes the pre-attack intelligence as sparse, vague and imperfect. Warnings about broad intentions are different from having the names, dates, flight numbers and operational details necessary to stop a specific plot.

That is what makes the release important. It gives Americans more primary-source material with which to evaluate one of the most consequential intelligence failures in U.S. history. Twenty-five years later, the strongest conclusions should come from what the documents actually say—not from claims that go beyond them.