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]
September 11-12, 2001: Senior US Officials Claim No Specific Warnings or High Threat Recently
The Washington Post reports, “Several US officials said there was no warning in the days before the attacks that a major operation was in the works. ‘In terms of specific warning that something of this nature was to occur, no,’ one official said.” [Washington Post, 9/11/2001] An anonymous “senior US official” tells ABC News, “There were no warnings regarding time or place. There are always generic threats now but there was nothing to indicate anything specific of this nature. In fact, in recent weeks, we were not in all that high a period of threat warning.” [ABC News, 9/12/2001]
September 12, 2001: Secretary of State Powell Claims No Evidence Specific Intelligence of Attack Was Missed
Secretary of State Colin Powell states, “In the first 24 hours of analysis, I have not seen any evidence that there was a specific signal that we missed.… In this case, we did not have intelligence of anything of this scope or magnitude.” [Washington File, 9/12/2001]
September 12, 2001: US Officials Deny Having Any Pre-9/11 Hints of Bin Laden Plot to Attack in US
The government’s initial response to the 9/11 attacks is that it had no evidence whatsoever that bin Laden planned an attack in the US. “There was a ton of stuff, but it all pointed to an attack abroad,” says one official. Furthermore, in the 24 hours after the attack, investigators would have been searching through “mountains of information.” However, “the vast electronic ‘take’ on bin Laden, said officials who requested anonymity, contained no hints of a pending terror campaign in the United States itself, no orders to subordinates, no electronic fund transfers, no reports from underlings on their surveillance of the airports in Boston, Newark, and Washington.” [Miami Herald, 9/12/2001]
September 14, 2001: FBI Director Mueller Caught in Whopper
FBI Director Mueller describes reports that several of the hijackers had received flight training in the US as “news, quite obviously,” adding, “If we had understood that to be the case, we would have—perhaps one could have averted this.” It will later be discovered that contrary to Mueller’s claims, the FBI had interviewed various flight school staffs about Middle Eastern militants on numerous occasions, from 1996 until a few weeks before 9/11. [Boston Globe, 9/18/2001; Washington Post, 9/23/2001] Three days later, he says, “There were no warning signs that I’m aware of that would indicate this type of operation in the country.” [US Department of Justice, 9/17/2001] Slate magazine will contrast this with numerous other contradictory statements and articles, and will award Mueller the “Whopper of the Week.” [Slate, 5/17/2002]
September 16-October 14, 2001: President Bush Claim that Using Planes as Missiles Was Impossible to Predict Is Contradicted by Former CIA Official
President Bush says, “Never (in) anybody’s thought processes… about how to protect America did we ever think that the evil doers would fly not one but four commercial aircraft into precious US targets… never.” [US President, 9/24/2001] A month later, Paul Pillar, the former deputy director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center, will say, “The idea of commandeering an aircraft and crashing it into the ground and causing high casualties, sure we’ve thought of it.” [Los Angeles Times, 10/14/2001]
September 16, 2001: Vice President Cheney Says There Was No Warning of ‘Domestic Operation or Involving What Happened’
Vice President Cheney acknowledges that US intelligence officials received threat information during the summer of 2001 “that a big operation was planned” by terrorists, possibly striking the US. But he also says, “No specific threat involving really a domestic operation or involving what happened, obviously—the cities, airliner and so forth.” [Washington File, 9/12/2001]
September 25, 2001: FAA Head Says No One Imagined Airplanes Used As Lethal Weapons
FAA Administrator Jane Garvey claims that before 9/11, “No one could imagine someone being willing to commit suicide, being willing to use an airplane as a lethal weapon.”
[CNN, 9/25/2001]
October 17, 2001: JCS Chairman Myers Says He Hadn’t Thought of 9/11-Type Scenario
Gen. Richard Myers, acting Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman on 9/11, says of 9/11, “You hate to admit it, but we hadn’t thought about this.” He was promoted from Vice-Chairman to Chairman three days after 9/11. [American Forces Press Service, 10/23/2001]
Before Mid-January 2002: Top CIA Official Reportedly Describes 9/11 as ‘Triumph’
According to former CIA officer Robert Baer, a high-ranking CIA official tells a reporter off-the-record that, “when the dust finally clears, Americans will see that September 11 was a triumph for the intelligence community, not a failure.” It is unclear why the CIA officer thinks this and the reporter who tells Baer this story is not named. However, Baer comments that if that is what the CIA thinks, “I’m scared to death of what lies ahead.” [Baer, 2002, pp. xxiii]
