US intelligence before the September 11th attacks showed plenty of threats but no reports that extremists were going to use airplanes as missiles, White House national security adviser Ms Condoleezza Rice said today.
Ms Rice addressed a key issue that has dogged the Bush administration since - whether there was any warning of the strike to come that was overlooked.
"When threat reporting increased during the spring and summer of 2001, we moved the US government at all levels to a high state of alert and activity," she said.
"The threat reporting that we received in the spring and summer of 2001 was not specific as to time, nor place, nor manner of attack."
But on August 6th, 2001, US President George W. Bush's intelligence briefing included a response to questions he had earlier raised about al-Qaeda intentions to strike the United States, Ms Rice said. The briefing reviewed past intelligence reporting, mostly from the 1990s, regarding possible al-Qaeda plans to attack inside the United States, she said.
It referred to uncorroborated reports from 1998 that terrorists might attempt to hijack a US aircraft in an attempt to blackmail the government into releasing extremists being held in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Ms Rice said.
The briefing item was not prompted by any specific threat information, she insisted. "And it did not raise the possibility that terrorists might use airplanes as missiles," Ms Rice said.
Almost all of the reports focused on al-Qaeda activities outside the United States, especially in the Middle East and in North Africa, and any information that was specific referred to operations overseas, Ms Rice said. "Most often though the threat reporting was frustratingly vague."
She revealed intercepted communications, also called "chatter," that was picked up during that period that said: "Unbelievable news in coming weeks" or "Big event . . . there will be a very, very, very, very big uproar" or "There will be attacks in the near future."