Agency files show that it is believed Osama bin Laden was funding the Afghan rebels against the USSR in the 1980s . In 1991 , bin Laden returned to his native Saudi Arabia protesting the presence of troops , and Operation Desert Storm . He was expelled from the country . In 1996 , the CIA created a team to hunt bin Laden . They were trading information with the Sudanese until , on the word of a source that would later be found to be a fabricator , the CIA closed its Sudan station later that year . In 1998 bin Laden would declare war on America , and , on August 7 , strike in Tanzania and Nairobi . On October 12 , 2000 , Al Qaeda bombed the USS '' Cole '' . In 1947 when the CIA was founded , there were 200 agents in the Clandestine Service . In 2001 , of the 17,000 employees in the CIA , there were 1,000 in the Clandestine Service . Of that 1,000 few would accept hardship postings . In the first days of George W. Bush 's presidency , Al Qaeda threats were ubiquitous in daily Presidential CIA briefings , but it may have become a case of the boy who cries wolf . The agency 's predictions were dire but carried little weight , and the focus of the President and his defense staff were elsewhere . The CIA arranged the arrests of suspected Al Qaeda members through cooperation with foreign agencies , but the CIA could not definitively say what effect these arrests have had , and it could not gain hard intelligence from those captured . The President had asked the CIA if Al Qaeda could plan attacks in the US . On August 6 , Bush received a daily briefing with the headline , not based on current , solid intelligence , " Al Qaeda determined to strike inside the US . " The US had been hunting bin Laden since 1996 and had had several opportunities , but neither Clinton , nor Bush had wanted to risk their skin taking an active role in a murky assassination plot , and the perfect opportunity had never materialized for a trigger shy DCI that would have given him the reassurances he needed to take the plunge . That day , Richard A. Clarke sent National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice warning of the risks , and decrying the inaction of the CIA
strike in Tanzania and Nairobi
1998 United States embassy bombings
Central Intelligence Agency