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What did President George W. Bush actually know before September 11, 2001? The documented record is more complicated than either “he knew nothing” or “he knew everything.” On August 6, Bush received a Presidential Daily Brief titled “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US.” It warned that bin Laden had long wanted attacks inside the United States, referenced suspicious activity and noted that the FBI had dozens of bin Laden related investigations underway. The 9/11 Commission later said this was the 36th PDB item that year concerning bin Laden or al Qaeda, though it was the first focused specifically on the possibility of an attack inside the country.
That summer, intelligence officials were describing the threat environment as unusually intense. The Commission famously characterized the system as “blinking red.” Separately, an FBI agent in Phoenix had warned about individuals of investigative interest attending American aviation schools. In Minnesota, Zacarias Moussaoui attracted attention after seeking Boeing 747 simulator training despite limited flying experience, and an FBI agent suspected he might be planning a hijacking.
Those facts deserve serious scrutiny. But there is an equally important distinction: the official investigations did not find evidence that Bush had been given the specific date, targets, flight numbers or operational details of the September 11 attacks. Much of the threat reporting pointed overseas, and critical pieces of information remained scattered among agencies that failed to connect them.
So the responsible question is not whether there was a magical memo spelling out the entire plot. There wasn’t. The harder question is why so many warning lights were flashing, why aviation related clues existed and why the national security system failed to assemble the pieces before catastrophe struck before disaster finally struck. Lionel joins @shaunattwoodOFFICIALfor this critical meeting.
