WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — On Friday, the CIA released declassified versions of five internal documents related to the Agency’s performance prior to the attacks of September 11, 2011, according to a CIA press release.
“On nine separate occasions, starting in December 1998, I sent detailed memoranda to the senior-most leadership of our government, including appropriate senior leaders in Congress, to warn of terrorist plotting.”
“[T]hose dealing most directly with terrorism in our government were fully informed of the threat.”
Tenet added he was “absolutely certain that the national security team fully understood the threat in all its strategic and tactical implications.”
On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda militants hijacked four airplanes and carried out suicide attacks on several targets in the United States. Two of these airplanes were flown into two World Trade Center towers in New York City, the third hit the US Pentagon, while the fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
More than 3,000 people were killed in the terrorist attacks.
