On September 11th, 2001, a plane carrying nearly 3,000 people crashed into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, killing all aboard. The United States knew that al-Qaeda was planning to hijack planes and crash them into buildings in the United States.
00:00:24.060If you fool me, we can't get fooled again.
00:00:25.860Well, for one thing, the United States had incredible intelligence on bin Laden and his plans, precise intelligence, actionable intelligence.
00:00:33.640On August 6th, 2001, President Bush received a presidential daily briefing.
00:00:38.780Its title, literally, Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.
00:00:43.660It continued, Al-Qaeda members, including some who are U.S. citizens, have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years,
00:00:50.840and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.
00:01:22.100In May 2001, an intelligence report concluded this.
00:01:26.860Operatives may hijack airplanes, end quote.
00:01:29.580The FAA issued a circular to airlines warning of heightened increase in hijackings.
00:01:34.920And then in July of 2001, the FAA issued another circular, this one noting that, quote,
00:01:40.820currently active terror groups were known to plan and train for hijackings and were able to build and conceal explosives and luggage.
00:01:49.900Between 1999 and 2001, NORAD, which defends North American airspace, simulated a foreign hijacked airliner crashing into a building in the United States as part of a training exercise.
00:02:03.020The National Reconnaissance Office, a little-known intelligence agency that runs our spy satellites and remote-controlled surveillance planes,
00:02:09.640was planning an exercise in which an errant aircraft would crash into one of its buildings.
00:02:15.200That exercise was on September 11, 2001, and planned to take place just a couple of miles from Dulles Airport.
00:02:22.700That's where the American Airlines flight number 77 had taken off before it crashed into the Pentagon.
00:02:28.780In other words, the idea of al-Qaeda hijacking an airplane and flying into a building was entirely plausible before 9-11.
00:02:37.380Officials knew it could happen, and there were other signs as well.
00:02:40.660During the presidential transition in 2000 and 2001, nine months before 9-11,
00:06:20.820In 1983, a group called Islamic Jihad murdered more than 300 U.S. Marines at a military barracks in Beirut.
00:06:28.000At the time, it was the largest non-nuclear explosion since Nagasaki.
00:06:32.020The four-story concrete building collapsed in a pile of rubble.
00:06:35.560More than 200 of the sleeping men were killed in that one hideous, insane attack.
00:06:39.800In 1993, a Pakistani national called Ramzi Youssef bombed the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan.
00:06:45.620The key question now, was this a one-off attack or the start of a campaign of bombing?
00:06:51.660By 1996, al-Qaeda had emerged as the single clearest threat to the United States.
00:06:56.900In response to that threat, the CIA created something called ALEC Station,
00:07:00.640otherwise known as the bin Laden unit, which Mike Scheuer ran.
00:07:03.880But as it turned out, not everyone at the CIA wanted to help fight al-Qaeda.
00:07:07.980We wanted some basic information about Osama bin Laden, his bank accounts, his health information, his educational information, very basic things.
00:07:19.340We kept sending a message because it was important.
00:07:52.060Don't send Brennan any more of these notes.
00:07:55.500So whatever the reason was, I don't know.
00:07:59.760But, you know, if you identify a liaison service who you know has information you need,
00:08:06.980it's not impossible to persuade them to do it since we defend Saudi Arabia, especially in that case.
00:08:14.040We were told not to send any more cables on that issue to Riyadh.
00:08:18.380Just because I was the chief of operations on Osama bin Laden didn't mean there wasn't somebody else working on the same issue in an opposite direction.
00:08:26.980And as it turned out, the opposite direction carried the day with the approval of presidents.
00:08:34.180As Brennan was withholding critical information on bin Laden,
00:08:37.880the CIA's counterterrorism center started developing a plan to capture bin Laden at a terrorist training facility known as Tarnak Farms.