In the summer of 2001, “the warnings [of an impending terrorist attack] continued to build at such a rate that the CIA’s counterterrorism team, led by Cofer Black, felt compelled to consolidate the threats into a single, strategic assessment for [CIA Director George] Tenet. On July 10 [2001], Black presented his findings to the CIA director, who had been losing sleep over the terrorist warnings and now was shocked by what he heard. Al Qaeda was going to attack American interests, possibly within the United States itself. ‘The briefing he gave me literally made my hair stand on end,’ Tenet recalled.”
– Elisabeth Bumiller, Condoleezza Rice: An American Life, Page 156