July 6, 2001: CIA Counterterrorism Chief Black Warns Some Arab Visitors that a Major Al-Qaeda Attack Is Imminent

Cofer Black, director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center, tells a visiting group from an Arab country that an attack on an unprecedented scale is going to happen, but the details of when and where it will occur are unknown. [Kiriakou and Ruby, 2010, pp. 99-100; Real News Network, 4/23/2015; Truthdig, 8/12/2017] The CIA occasionally holds visits for members of the intelligence services of friendly foreign countries at its headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The visitors are usually given a tour of the CIA’s operations center, and allowed to meet the CIA director and other senior officials, if possible. The visit is a chance for them to get acquainted with the CIA, exchange gifts, and take some photos. “We wanted to make them feel welcome and important” because these intelligence services “could be additional eyes and ears in places where our own access was limited,” CIA officer John Kiriakou will later write. Today, Kiriakou is hosting one such group, which comes from an unnamed small Middle Eastern state. The group, which includes some relatively low-level military officers, is made up of people Kiriakou has been training. Kiriakou asked Black if he would stop by to meet the group and, to his surprise, Black agreed to do so.
Black Gives a Detailed Briefing on Al-Qaeda – “This is a really big deal,” Kiriakou explains to the visitors. Black, he says, is “the head of counterterrorism for the entire world, which makes him a crucial guy in our shop.” After he arrives, Black shakes the hands of all the visitors and, once everyone is seated in a conference room, he welcomes them to the CIA and says how much the agency values their friendship. In light of the Counterterrorist Center director’s busy schedule, Kiriakou is expecting Black to stay for only a short time, perhaps taking a few questions before leaving. But he stays for about 30 minutes, and delivers a detailed and comprehensive briefing on what he considers the most important topic: al-Qaeda.
Black Says, ‘Something Terrible Is Going to Happen’ – Black begins by telling the visitors about the growing terrorist threat. He then warns them that some kind of major catastrophic event is imminent, saying: “We know something terrible is going to happen. We don’t know when and we don’t know where.” He adds that, despite the lack of knowledge of its details, “We do know it’s going to be against US interests and it’s going to be big, perhaps bigger than anything we’ve seen before.” The visitors are silent upon hearing this alarming information.
‘Chatter’ Indicates an Attack Is Imminent – “The mood in the al-Qaeda training camps is one of jubilation,” Black continues. “We’ve never seen them as excited and as happy as they are now,” he adds. He says “chatter” has been picked up that appears to be filled with code words and phrases that CIA analysts consider frightening, such as, “There’s going to be a great wedding,” “There’s going to be a great soccer game,” and, “The salesman is coming with great quantities of honey.” These are all coded references to a terrorist attack, he asserts. “We’re sure it’s going to happen, we just don’t know where,” he says of the predicted attack. Black then asks the visitors for their cooperation in tackling the threat. “If you have any sources inside al-Qaeda, please work them now because whatever it is, we have to do everything we can to stop it,” he says. By the end of the briefing, the visitors are clearly unsettled. They are so shocked at the power of what they have been told that when Black asks if they have any questions, no one can think of any. Finally, the senior member of the group stands up and says he will pass on Black’s information to his country’s intelligence service, and it would do everything in its power to assist the US.
Black Will Say He Was ‘Very Serious’ in the Briefing – Later on, when he thanks Black for giving his time, Kiriakou will ask the Counterterrorist Center director, “Did you just make that up or embellish the state of play for their benefit, or were you serious in that briefing?” Black will say he was “very serious.” He will tell Kiriakou he has been to the White House and talked with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice about the threat, and White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke is also making a noise about the issue, but no one is paying much attention to them. [Kiriakou and Ruby, 2010, pp. 99-101] Black is one of only a few people in the CIA who have been trying to alert the Bush administration to the growing threat posed by al-Qaeda. [WBUR, 10/13/2020] All through the summer, he is telling anyone who will listen that something terrible is going to happen and a massive attack is imminent (see April 2001, July 10, 2001, and August 15, 2001). “But,” journalist and author Jane Mayer will comment, “one of the things that mystified Black’s colleagues was how he could have been as alarmed as he was about al-Qaeda yet fail to piece together the many fragments of the September 11 puzzle that reached the [CIA] prior to the attacks.” [Mayer, 2008, pp. 12]