1:47 p.m. September 11, 2001: Press Secretary Fleischer Says There Were ‘No Warnings’ of Today’s Attacks

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer tells reporters traveling with President Bush that the administration received no warnings of the terrorist attacks that occurred this morning. During a press briefing on Air Force One after the plane takes off from Barksdale Air Force Base (see 1:37 p.m. September 11, 2001), a reporter asks if Bush knows “anything more” about who is responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. “That information is still being gathered and analyzed,” Fleischer replies. Fleischer is then asked, “Had there been any warnings that the president knew of?” to which he answers, simply, “No warnings.” He is then asked if Bush is “concerned about the fact that this attack of this severity happened with no warning?” In response, Fleischer changes the subject and fails to answer the question. In the coming days and weeks, senior administration officials, including Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, will similarly say there was “no specific threat” of the kind of attack that happened today. [White House, 9/11/2001; New York Times, 5/18/2002] The 9/11 Commission Report, however, will note, “Most of the intelligence community recognized in the summer of 2001 that the number and severity of threat reports were unprecedented.” On August 6, Bush in fact received a Presidential Daily Brief that included an article titled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US” (see August 6, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 260, 262] All the same, Fleischer will say in May 2002 that the answer he gave to reporters today, stating that there were no warnings of the attacks, was appropriate. “Flying on Air Force One, with the destruction of the attacks still visible on the plane’s TV sets, the only way to interpret that question was that it related to the attacks that we were in the midst of,” he will say. [New York Times, 5/18/2002] And according to the 9/11 Commission Report, “Despite their large number, the threats received [in the summer of 2001] contained few specifics regarding time, place, method, or target.” The report will state, therefore, that the 9/11 Commission “cannot say for certain whether these reports, as dramatic as they were, related to the 9/11 attacks.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 262-263]