FAA Warned of bin Laden Hijacking in 1998

Thursday, Feb. 10, 2005 12:42 p.m. EST
The press is ballyhooing a report in today's New York Times that suggests that the Federal Aviation Administration received its first clear set of warnings of a 9/11-style attack during the early months of the Bush administration.

But in fact, intelligence naming Osama bin Laden - and even identifying the airports he might use to hijack airliners - was passed on to the FAA as early as 1998 - where the information languished during the final two years of President Clinton's second term. Sourcing a newly declassified section of the 9/11 Commission report, the Times said Thursday:

"Leaders of the FAA received 52 intelligence reports from their security branch that mentioned Mr. Bin Laden or Al Qaida from April to Sept. 2001. That represented half of all the intelligence summaries in that time."

The paper continued: "Five of the intelligence reports specifically mentioned Al Qaeda's training or capability to conduct hijackings, the report said. Two mentioned suicide operations, although not connected to aviation."

"Aviation officials amassed so much information about the growing threat posed by terrorists that they conducted classified briefings in mid-2001 for security officials at 19 of the nation's busiest airports to warn of the threat posed in particular by Mr. bin Laden."

Repeatedly referencing President Bush's first year in office, the Times even noted that the White House had fought to keep the FAA warnings classified, leaving readers to surmise that the Bush administration was trying to cover up its failure to act.

Nowhere in the Times report, however, was the Clinton-era intelligence even hinted at, though it was first reported three years ago by the Times' sister publication, the Boston Globe:

"The Federal Aviation Administration warned the nation's airports and airlines in late 1998 about a possible terrorist hijacking 'at a metropolitan airport in the Eastern United States' and urged a 'high degree of vigilance' against threats to US civil aviation from Osama bin Laden's terrorist network," the Globe revealed in May 2002.

New documents, the paper said, "appear to show that US intelligence agencies communicated to the FAA specific concerns about threats, including hijackings, to domestic airliners dating back to the Clinton administration."

One FAA official cited by the Globe acknowledged privately that a warning involving a "metropolitan airport" in the Eastern United States effectively applied to fewer than 20 airfields.

Two out of three of the 1998 FAA circulars obtained by the Globe specifically warned about hijacking plans by Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

In an Oct. 8, 1998 advisory, airports and airlines were instructed to maintain a "high degree of alertness" based on statements made by bin Laden and other Islamic leaders. It also cited intelligence gathered in the wake of President Clinton's cruise missile attacks against suspected al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan and Sudan.

Bin Laden, the circular states, had praised Ramzi Yousef, who was arrested in a failed 1995 plot to blow up airliners over the Pacific, which later became the blueprint for the 9/11 attacks.

The Clinton-era circular warned that "militants had been mobilized to strike a significant US or Israeli target, to include bringing down or hijacking aircraft."

The document also noted that "one of the incarcerated suspects in the bombing of the US Embassy in Nairobi that he received aircraft hijack training. ... The arrest and pending extradition of [the] bin Laden cadre raises the possibility of a US airliner being hijacked in an effort to demand the release of incarcerated members."

An advisory issued two months later was equally specific, warning, "The FAA has received information that unidentified individuals, who are associated with a terrorist organization, may be planning a hijacking at a metropolitan airport in the Eastern United States."

The third FAA advisory obtained by the Globe, issued Dec. 29, 1998, warned airline and airport security officials to "remain vigilant," based on statements made by bin Laden following the August 1998 cruise missile attacks.