Pre-9/11 memo declassified?
2004-04-09 21:13
Washington - The White House may declassify a memo passed to President George W Bush on August 6, 2001 suggesting that al-Qaeda could attack on US soil, communications director Dan Bartlett said on Friday.
The memo was written ahead of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda that killed about 3 000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
"We are going to go through the legal process to make sure that that can be done," Bartlett said in interviews with US television networks.
"We are working with the commission. We hope that we can declassify this document to make sure that the American people see what President Bush knew at the time," he said.
The independent commission investigating circumstances around the attacks called for the memo to be declassified after national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told the commission on Thursday, under oath, that the memo titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US" had been requested by Bush.
Rice insisted the memo was an overview of al-Qaeda's past activities and held no information that officials could have used to prevent the September 11 attacks.
"It had a discussion of whether or not they might use hijacking to try and free a prisoner who was being held in the United States," she said.
"But I can also tell you that there was nothing in this memo that suggested that an attack was coming on New York or Washington, DC. There was nothing in this memo as to time, place, how or where."
The Bush administration says it could not have predicted the September 11 attacks based on information available at the time.
Opposition Democrats - who held power for the previous eight years under president Bill Clinton - accuse Bush's administration of negligence in the fight against terrorism after arriving in power in January 2001.