The report was prepared for the NIC, which is made up of a dozen senior intelligence officers who assist the U.S. intelligence community in analyzing threats and priorities.
"Ramzi Yousef had planned to do this against the CIA headquarters," the report said.
Mr. Clinton yesterday said he knew about the dangerous potential of bin Laden, but discounted the suggestion that the 1999 analysis should have alerted his administration to the possibility of a terrorist attack on the scale of the September 11 attacks.
"That has nothing to do with intelligence," Mr. Clinton told the Associated Press while in Hawaii on a two-day stopover on the way to East Timor. "All that says is they used public sources to speculate on what bin Laden might do. That doesn't have anything to do with what the intelligence people, the CIA or the FBI, tell the administration."
The implications of this line of thinking are chilling. Does anyone think that a position paper on national security threats contracted by intel agencies would only use information in the public domain? These folks get high level clearances and see it all to make their threat assessments. If Clinton had ever met with his National Security team he may have understood this.
Agreed!
"June 2001 - German intelligence, the BND, warns the CIA and Israel that Middle Eastern terrorists are "planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture." [Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 14, 2001.]
A French secret service report on September 7 warned of possible attacks, and that the order to act would come from Afghanistan. Le Figaro says very precise information on targets for attack was communicated to the CIA.
Summer 2001 - An Iranian man phones U.S. law enforcement to warn of an imminent attack on the World Trade Center in the week of September 9th. German police confirm the calls but state that the U.S. Secret Service would not reveal any further information. [Source: German news agency "online.ie", September 14, 2001]
August 2001 - The FBI arrests an Islamic militant linked to Bin Laden in Boston. French intelligence sources confirm that the man is a key member of Bin Laden's network and the FBI learns that he has been taking flying lessons. At the time of his arrest the man is in possession of technical information on Boeing aircraft and flight manuals. [Source: Reuters, September 13]
Summer 2001 - Russian intelligence notifies the CIA that 25 terrorist pilots have been specifically training for suicide missions. This is reported in the Russian press and news stories are translated for FTW by a retired CIA officer."