The short answer is that there is absolutely nothing in this memo that flags the 9/11 attacks and methodology.

(The "xxxxx" parts were blacked out in the original.)

Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US

This is the headline. The Democrats were hoping that the headline, and the fact that the word "hijack" appeared in the memo, would be all that would sink into popular knowledge. They should have left well enough alone.

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the U.S. Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."

After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to xxxxxxxxxxx service.

An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an xxxxxxxxxx service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative's access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.

The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Ladin's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US. Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Ladin lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own US attack.

Ressam says Bin Ladin was aware of the Los Angeles operation.

Although Bin Ladin has not succeeded, his attacks against the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Ladin associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.

Al-Qa'ida members — including some who are US citizens — have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two al-Qa'ida members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our Embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Ladin cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.

So far, we have a lot of information from the late 1990s, the gist of which is that bin Laden wants to attack the United States, and has operatives in America. Note that they particularly flag cells comprised of U.S. citizens. None of the 9/11 attackers were U.S. citizens.

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a xxxxxxxxxx service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar 'Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists.

Notice that this refers to a hostage hijacking, to gain some political goal, similar to many other previous hijackings. It does not refer to hijacking planes to use as bombs. It refers to the kind of hijackings that everyone had, prior to 9/11, been led to expect. Note also that the information is uncorroborated. You know, the kind of intelligence that has pissed so many people off in connection with Iraq? The kind everyone says Bush should never ever listen to?

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.

These last two sentences are the only ones in the whole memo that could possibly be dated later than the Clinton administration, although no actual dates are given. Given the word "is" (sorry) in the phrase "is conducting," I would speculate the information is current as of the date of the memo.

The first sentence indicates that some form of attack may take place on federal buildings in New York. The sentence mentions hijacking, but does not connect hijackings specifically with attacks on buildings. The second sentence implies attacks with bombs, like the original WTC attack. Both sentences together would, to most people, imply attacks with truck bombs against Federal buildings in New York. Had a Federal building in New York been blown up by a truck bomb, this memo could indeed have been described as a warning of sorts.

Although the Left will desperately analyze this down to the subatomic level, and I have seen some spectacular efforts so far, the fact remains that there is simply nothing in this memo that indicates or predicts an attack on commercial office buildings using hijacked loaded jumbo jets as weapons. Even peripherally. Nothing.

Had the 9/11 terrorists blown up Hoover Dam, this memo would have been equally significant as a warning. That is, not at all.

The famous "August memo," star of web sites and conspiracy theories. Another wet firecracker.