@jolyon🇺🇸 A CIA warning from 3 years before 9/11 is hard to read now. The CIA just released 69 intelligence briefs that had never been made public before, showing what the White House was being told about Al Qaeda before the attacks. And one from September 1998 really stands out. A CIA analyst wrote that Al Qaeda “may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a U.S. city.” That warning went directly to Bill Clinton’s White House. But it didn’t make another prominent appearance in the warnings that followed. The CIA kept telling both Clinton and George W. Bush that bin Laden wanted to attack the U.S., but much of the intelligence was vague and patchy. They knew Al Qaeda wanted to hit the U.S. They just never understood how big or how close the attack really was. 25 years later, that one line from 1998 is pretty chilling to read. Source: The New York Times / Writer: Daniyal

@jolyon🇺🇸 A CIA warning from 3 years before 9/11 is hard to read now. The CIA just released 69 intelligence briefs that had never been made public before, showing what the White House was being told about Al Qaeda before the attacks. And one from September 1998 really stands out. A CIA analyst wrote that Al Qaeda “may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a U.S. city.” That warning went directly to Bill Clinton’s White House. But it didn’t make another prominent appearance in the warnings that followed. The CIA kept telling both Clinton and George W. Bush that bin Laden wanted to attack the U.S., but much of the intelligence was vague and patchy. They knew Al Qaeda wanted to hit the U.S. They just never understood how big or how close the attack really was. 25 years later, that one line from 1998 is pretty chilling to read. Source: The New York Times / Writer: Daniyal