Former CIA analyst Bruce Riedel wrote, on September 11, 2001, “The attacks had all the hallmarks of al Qaeda and were preceded by months of warning that an assault on America was coming. Gary Schroen, one of my colleagues who led the first CIA team into Afghanistan after 9/11 to hunt for bin Laden, remembers the day at CIA headquarters in Langley [Virginia] this way: ‘As soon as the second aircraft smashed into the second tower, everyone said, ‘Bin Laden. It was bin Laden. This isn’t an accident; this isn’t some tragedy that, you know, that’s some tragic accident. This is the attack that bin Laden’s been promising.’ I came to exactly the same conclusion at the White House at the same time and told National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.”
– Bruce Riedel, The Search for Al Qaeda, Pages 2-3