CIA releases warning documents from before the September 11 attacks

The Central Intelligence Agency of the United States has released 71 documents warning of a threat from Al Qaeda before the September 11 attacks. The release concerns the attacks of September 11. The documents are described as warnings that predate those attacks. The number of documents given is 71.

The set includes presidential daily briefs. Those briefs come from the administrations of former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The time span given runs from 1998 to the day after the attacks. Both administrations are named as sources of the briefs in the release.

The threat named in the description of the documents is a threat from Al Qaeda. The attacks named are the September 11 attacks. The releasing agency is the Central Intelligence Agency. The documents are a release of existing warning material rather than a new investigation announced in this report.

Clinton is identified as a former president whose administration produced some of the briefs. Bush is identified the same way. The endpoint of the document range is the day after the attacks. The start of the range is 1998.

The report gives the size of the release as 71 documents. It characterizes them as warnings of an Al Qaeda threat. It places presidential daily briefs inside the release. It does not publish a new casualty figure for the attacks themselves.

The public step is the release. The historical period covered is the years of warning documents through the day after the attacks. The two presidencies named are those of Clinton and Bush. The recorded action is the disclosure of those 71 documents.