Declassified CIA documents show clear warnings to presidents before 9/11

Newly declassified documents show the CIA repeatedly warned Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush that Osama bin Laden was determined to strike at the United States, as far back as three years before the 9/11 attacks.

The high-level warnings lacked definitive information about precisely how or when the attacks might take place. But one intelligence report to the president in September 1998 came tantalizingly close to grasping what might be coming, stating that bin Laden’s supporters “may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a US city.”

The same memo states that “intelligence provides no conclusive information on bin Ladin’s intentions for future attacks.”

The document was one of dozens of formerly top-secret presidential briefings related to the 9/11 attacks released by the CIA on Friday, the 25th anniversary of deadly Al Qaeda terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

The documents, posted on the CIA’s website, cover the period from February 1998 to Sept. 12, 2001. All are drawn from the daily intelligence briefings that were given by the CIA and other spy agencies to Clinton and his successor, Bush.

In a statement, CIA Director John Ratcliffe called it “the single largest release of CIA analysis related to 9/11 ever.”

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/health