On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the CIA released seventy-one President's Daily Briefs (the President's daily intelligence report, often abbreviated as PDB) dating from the period between February 13, 1998 and September 12, 2001. The period covered therefore refers to the Clinton and Bush administrations. The documents are still heavily redacted, but they nevertheless contain a great deal of important information about the terrorist threats posed by al-Qaeda to the United States and about Osama bin Laden's role in Afghanistan.
The documents are available both as a complete collection and as individual PDFs.
Many of the documents report that bin Laden was developing chemical and biological weapons through al-Qaeda's ties with companies considered legitimate and that he was planning various types of attacks against American targets, both in the United States and in other countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Malaysia. The President's Daily Brief of July 3, 1998 reports that al-Qaeda was considering an attack against a shopping mall in Washington, the kidnapping of a person whose name is redacted, and the possibility of carrying out unspecified attacks against U.S. targets in foreign countries and in the cities of New York and Washington. Other documents dating from the final months of 1998 instead report al-Qaeda's intentions to carry out attacks involving aircraft, that terrorists linked to al-Qaeda were training to hijack aircraft, and that bin Laden intended to crash an aircraft loaded with explosives into an American city. On July 21, 1999, it was also reported that al-Qaeda had conducted a dry run for an attack against FBI Headquarters.
The released documents also reveal how bin Laden had an active role in drug production and the drug market, having financially supported, with the contribution of expert scientists, the development of highly addictive drugs such as methamphetamines and ecstasy. This information contradicts what was reported by the 9/11 Commission in the 9/11 Commission Report, which states in the chapter A Money Trail? that there was no reliable evidence that Bin Ladin was involved in or made his money through drug trafficking.
Another aspect that emerges is the often-conflictual relationship between bin Laden and Mullah Omar, also due to bin Laden's intentions to attack the United States. On May 7, 1999, it was reported that the Mullah was becoming increasingly annoyed by bin Laden's presence and was seeking ways to expel him. The July 26 memo reports that bin Laden had promised the Taliban that he had no intention of attacking the United States first, but only in response to American actions in Afghanistan, an event that the Pakistani press considered imminent. However, the Taliban themselves were skeptical about the truthfulness of the terrorist's promise and had prevented bin Laden from speaking to Western journalists to prevent him from using the media as a means of issuing threats. The following year, the relationship between al-Qaeda and the Taliban appeared even more complex, with reports that the Mullah had sentenced to death some government officials who had opposed the decision to host bin Laden in Afghanistan.
The August 17, 2000 PDB again reported that nervousness was growing within the Taliban government over bin Laden's presence and that the Mullah complained that al-Qaeda was becoming too radical, a concern that sounds rather bizarre coming from the leader of one of the world's most extremist governments. The Mullah had nevertheless ruled out expelling him for the time being, also considering that handing him over to the United States would increase external pressure over human rights and would be of no help to the Kabul government. The Mullah had also rejected bin Laden's proposal to pay Taliban fighters $100 a month, to prevent them from becoming more loyal to al-Qaeda than to the government itself. On March 26, 2001, the CIA note confirmed that the Taliban had no intention of handing bin Laden over to the United States except in exchange for economic aid for the reconstruction of the country and recognition of their government.
The collection also contains the now-famous Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US memo from August 2001, published in 2004, according to which al-Qaeda operatives in the United States were preparing to carry out hijackings, and it concludes with the Situation Report of September 12, 2001, the day after the attacks, which reports that there was strong evidence that al-Qaeda intended to carry out devastating attacks against American targets. The memo adds that bin Laden had had a major confrontation with Mullah Omar, to whom he had reported that he was planning an attack that would cause serious damage to the United States. Bin Laden had also moved from Kandahar to Kabul, possibly expecting a military operation in the city where he was known to be located.
The released documents therefore show that the CIA was well aware that al-Qaeda was planning attacks against American targets, including within the United States itself, and confirm that, as also noted by the 9/11 Commission Report, the greatest intelligence failure was the failure to connect the information and to share it with the other investigative agencies.
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