The White House on Saturday released an intelligence document President George W. Bush received on Aug. 6, 2001 that warned of possible terror attacks inside the United States by supporters of Osama bin Laden.
The document, one of the Presidential Daily Briefings (PDB), warned that al-Qaeda planned an attack within the Untied States with explosives and wanted to hijack airplanes. Bush received the document at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack In the United States," the briefing included intelligence reports received as currently as May 2001.
The disclosure appears to contradict the White House's repeated assertions that the briefing the president received about the al-Qaeda threat was "historical" in nature and that the White House had little reason to suspect an al-Qaeda attack within US borders.
An independent commission looking into the Sept. 11 attacks has asked the White House to declassify the document, which was brought up frequently during National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's three hours of public testimony before the commission Thursday.
(Xinhua News Agency April 11, 2004)
|