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The CIA this week posted 71 declassified President’s Daily Briefs tied to al‑Qaida and Osama bin Laden. Director John Ratcliffe said the release was the agency’s largest single PDB disclosure related to 9/11, part of President Donald Trump’s transparency push and timed with the 25th anniversary commemorations. The documents are short, redacted, and full of hard questions that families and taxpayers deserve to have answered plainly.
What the CIA released and what it shows
The packet of PDBs covers material from early 1998 through the day after the attacks in 2001. Some pages are newly available; many remain redacted or withheld. The collection includes previously known items, like the August 2001 memo titled “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US,” and newly released entries prepared for President Bill Clinton’s brief. The agency, in announcing the rollout, said this was done in the name of transparency. Transparency is useful — assuming someone actually reads what was put on the table.
The startling 1998 warning: “explosive‑packed airplane”
One note in the file prepared for President Clinton in September 1998 warned analysts that bin Laden’s network “may fly an explosive‑packed airplane into a U.S. city.” That is not the language of guesswork. It names the method — an airplane loaded with explosives — and it points to the United States and a “preferred city.” Other memos referred to hijack training, “trial runs” at a New York airport, and even possible targets beyond hijackings. If anyone expected foggy, hedged phrasing, they can stop looking: the analysts were explicit. The bigger question is what officials did when that plain language reached the top.
Accountability starts with honest answers
These papers make clear the intelligence stream was issuing warnings through the Clinton years and into the Bush administration. President George W. Bush got a famous July 2001 PDB that warned bin Laden “determined to strike,” and the FBI had multiple bin Laden‑related investigations underway. Yet senior officials later insisted they had no “actionable” intelligence predicting the specific plot. That defense collapses when the memos use words like “explosive‑packed airplane.” Condoleezza Rice expressed remorse at this year’s commemoration, which is the human reaction — but remorse does not explain why key questions remain unanswered. We need a line‑by‑line accounting: which pages were withheld, why, and who decided the material was not acted upon.
Why the release matters — and what should happen next
This release matters because it tests the promises of transparency and because it forces the hard work of learning lessons and assigning responsibility. Families of the fallen and the American public deserve more than a commemorative gesture. They deserve the full, unredacted record where possible, clear explanations from those who received these briefs, and concrete reforms so warnings are not treated like paperwork to be filed away. Call it accountability or common sense: if intelligence warns of a danger that later comes true, we shouldn’t settle for thin apologies and bureaucratic shrugging. We should demand answers and fixes — and keep pressing until we get them.
