Clinton warned of ‘Laden plot’ claims report

A secret intelligence report prepared for President Bill Clinton in December 1998 reported on a suspected plot by Osama bin Laden to hijack ...

A secret intelligence report prepared for President Bill Clinton in December 1998 reported on a suspected plot by Osama bin Laden to hijack a US airliner in an effort to force the country to release imprisoned conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center attacks.

The one-page declassified version of the President’s Daily Brief dated December 4, 1998, contains chilling information the CIA gleaned from several sources indicating that Al Qaeda was working with US-based operatives of its deadly ally, the Eqyptian group Gama at Al-Islamiyya, in the purported plot.

The PDB shows that the intelligence community and the White House were aware of Al Qaeda’s interest in hijacking US airliners long before the attacks on 9/11. The day the PDB was prepared, then-CIA director George Tenet said in a memo to the intelligence community that ‘‘we are at war,’’ and that no resources should be spared to defeat the terrorists.

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A report by the presidential panel investigating the 9/11 attacks will include the newly declassified document and a previously declassified PDB from August 6, 2001, when it is released this week. It also will contain details of what the panel’s executive director, Philip Zelikow, described on Saturday as an ‘‘energetic response’’ to the hijack threat information by the Clinton administration.

The 1998 document is ‘‘the most important PDB about hijacking published before 9/11,’’ said Zelikow. The August 6, 2001, PDB prepared for President Bush mentioned 1998 intelligence concerning a plot by Bin Laden ‘‘to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of ‘Blind Sheik’ Omar Abdel Rahman and other US-held extremists.’’

A White House official said on Saturday that the Bush national security team was not apprised by the outgoing Clinton administration about the intelligence report.

—LAT-WP

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