Washington — President George W. Bush's August 2001 briefing on terrorism threats, described largely as a historical document, included information from three months earlier that al-Qaeda was trying to send operatives into the United States from Canada for an attack, several people who have seen the memo said.
The so-called presidential daily briefing, or PDB, delivered to Mr. Bush on Aug. 6, 2001 — a month before the Sept. 11 attacks — said there were various reports accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden had wanted to strike inside the United States as early as 1997 and continuing into the spring of 2001, the sources said.
The same month as that briefing of Mr. Bush, U.S. intelligence officials received two uncorroborated reports suggesting terrorists might use airplanes, including one that suggested al-Qaeda operatives were considering flying a plane into a U.S. embassy, current and former government officials said.
Those August 2001 reports — among thousands of varied and uncorroborated threats received by the government each month — weren't deemed credible enough to tell the president or his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, the officials said. Neither involved the eventual Sept. 11 plot.
The sources who read the presidential memo would only speak on condition of anonymity because the White House has not yet declassified the highly sensitive document, entitled Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the United States.
That declassification process is expected to be completed soon, allowing the Bush administration to make the document public in a historic disclosure of secret presidential intelligence briefing materials.
The sources said the presidential memo included a series of bullet items that brought Mr. Bush through a history of mostly uncorroborated intelligence that cited al-Qaida's interest in hijacking planes to win the release of Islamic extremists who had been arrested in 1998 and 1999, as well as the travels of suspected al-Qaeda operatives, including some U.S. citizens, in and out of the United States. It suggested al-Qaida might have a support system in place on U.S. soil, the sources said.
The document also included FBI analytical judgments that some al-Qaeda activities were consistent with preparation for airline hijackings or other types of attacks, some members of the commission looking into the Sept. 11 attacks said earlier this week.
The second-to-last bullet told the president there were numerous — at least 70 — terror-related investigations under way by the FBI in 2001 involving matters or people on U.S. soil, the sources said.
And the final bullet told the president of a recent intelligence report indicating al-Qaeda operatives were trying to enter the United States to carry out an attack with explosives, the sources said. There was no specifics about the timing or target, the sources said.
The sources said the briefing memo did not provide the exact date of that intelligence but made clear it was in the 2001 time frame and FBI and other agencies were investigating it. The information had been provided to intelligence and law-enforcement agencies well before Mr. Bush's briefing, the sources said.
They said final bullet in the presidential memo was based on an intelligence report received in May of 2001 that indicated bin Laden operatives were trying to cross from Canada into the United States for an attack.
A joint congressional inquiry report into the Sept. 11 failures first divulged the existence of the May of 2001 threat report last year but did not reveal it was included in Bush's briefing. The congressional inquiry described the intelligence this way:
"In May 2001, the Intelligence Community obtained information that supporters of Osama bin Laden were reportedly planning to infiltrate the United States via Canada in order to carry out a terrorist operation using high explosives."
In her testimony Thursday to the Sept. 11 commission, Rice described Mr. Bush's Aug. 6 daily briefing as including mostly "historical information" and said most threat information in the summer of 2001 involved overseas targets.
Ms. Rice also testified she did not recall seeing any warnings before Sept. 11 that a plane might be used a terrorist weapon, though it was possible others in the White House did.
Current and former government officials familiar with terrorism intelligence said in the same month Mr. Bush received his briefing, U.S. intelligence received two uncorroborated reports — among hundreds — suggesting terrorists might use planes but neither reached the president or Rice.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said one report in August 2001 said there was uncorroborated information two bin Laden operatives had met in October 2000 to discuss a plot to attack the U.S. Embassy in Nairaobi using an airplane.
That report stated the operative would either bomb the embassy using the airplane or drive the airplane into it, said information provided congressional investigators and cited in their report released last year.
Separately, the CIA sent a warning to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration in August 2001 asking the agency to advise commercial airliners six Pakistanis in Latin America, not connected to al-Qaeda, were considering a hijacking, bombing or sabotage of an airliner. That warning did not have specifics on a time or location but said it could involve Britain, Canada, Mexico, Malaysia, Cuba, among others, information made public by the congressional inquiry said.
Ms. Rice stated emphatically Thursday she did not see any such reports about al-Qaida using a plane as a weapon until after Sept. 11, suggesting the intelligence may have reached someone lower in the White House.
"To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Chairman, this kind of analysis about the use of airplanes as weapons actually was never briefed to us," she said.
"I cannot tell you that there might not have been a report here or a report there that reached somebody in our midst."
