Text of Released PDB
From Fox News
The following is a redacted text of the presidential daily briefing from August 6, 2001:
Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.No smoking gun here. It reads pretty much like Condi characterized it. Reading today's headlines I expected something like al-Qaeda threatens to fly airliners into the World Trade Center.Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladensince 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the U.S. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bringthe fighting to America."
After U.S. strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladentold followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a [deleted text] service.
An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told [deleted text] serviceat the same time that Bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative'saccess to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike.
The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S. Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that BinLaden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate theoperation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning hisown U.S. attack.
Ressam says Bin Laden was aware of the Los Angeles operation.
Although Bin Laden has not succeeded, his attacks against the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he preparesoperations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Laden associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.
AI Qaeda members — including same who are U.S. citizens — have resided in and traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains asupport structure that could aid attacks.
Two Al Qaeda members found guiltyin the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were U.S. citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.
A clandestine sourcesaid in 1998 that a Bin Laden cell in New Yorkwas recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.
We havenot been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a [deleted text] service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar' Abd aI-Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns ofsuspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations forhijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance offederal buildings in New York.
The FBI is conducting approximately 70 investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers Bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May sayingthat a group or Bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.
While there clearly is nothing in this which says "watch out! someone is going to fly a plane into a building!".. It certainly strikes me that you could pick anyone up off the street, hand them this memo and they would want to find out more information about what is going on... To me all it takes is to have taken the time to read and understand what was being written in this memo to take the next logical step...
The fact that did not happen seems to indicate to me that someone dropped the ball...
This isn't politics, it is common sense: how can you read that memo and not want to find out more information?
Why are ya'all defending the lack of follow-up on this memo?... Do you think that is even *remotely* acceptable?... You don't honestly think that a mistake was not made here?... People should be willing to admit their mistakes... The lack of follow-up here *was a mistake*... Plain and simple! And you discredit yourselves and the entire republican party by acting like it wasn't!
- Greg
Posted by: Greg Saylor | Monday, April 12, 2004 at 06:53 AM
Look, the fall of the wall in Germany meant a full scale pull out in Afghanistan in 1989. WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN WARNED THEN --the day the feds found blueprints to blow up the WTC back in 1989. They pulled over 4 men of arab decent driving in Jersey. They found forged visas, illegal arms, and a bunch of docs. Had the feds known then what they were looking at, then, perhaps they could have prevented the WTC 1993 bombing. I think it wasn't until 1995-6 that they put it all together, well after 1993 WTC.
Oh yeah, the "Blind Sheik" of Egypt spent a great deal of time in Peshawar. Read his speeches to understand this man's position and movement. You see, UBL's mentor had been killed earlier that same year. Note, that UBL was also in that same movement, and that Ramzi Yousef left for Manila in 1994, meeting with the master mind of the Bojinka plan. Hello! --this man was considered a "success" by those in the movement before his eventual capture. Of course, it is probable to assume that his next main mission would be UBL's evolving plot to use airplanes as weapons.
I saw interviews on CBS about the Manila/Bojinka plan back in 1999. It was surprising news. It was flashed as important, but only from an investgative point of view. This was not breaking news.
Also, it should be known about Jalalabad in 1989. At this time Selig Harrison applealed to the Whitehouse in 1989, that a rapid "pull-out" would reflect poorly on those trained to vacate the Soviets. The promises not only had been broken, but the US pulled out with "fast termination". Now, is it fact that up to 200 top, trained militia within Afghanistan were killed in "so-called" inter-rival fighting within Jalalabad in late 1989? Or, was it more than that? I think it was an abrupt termination, and quite betraying to say the very least.
Posted by: Steve | Sunday, April 11, 2004 at 06:30 PM
The question is whether this should scare the shit out of you. This is "historical" only in the sense that it's supplying the background of why you should be scared shitless. I don't see how you can read that title and get anything other than the message that you should get off your lazy ass and figure out what's going on.
Especially when viewed in context with all the other crap flying around.
Posted by: Hal | Saturday, April 10, 2004 at 10:54 PM