Many sources have claimed that George W.Bush signed an Executive Order, ordering Federal agents to "back off the bin Ladens" in the run up to Sept 11th. The alleged Executive Order in question seems to be W199I-WF-213589 but our investigations have been unable to find the text of this order. Indeed, that reference/number doesn't appear to be consistent with Presidential Executive Orders, which all appear to have a standard 5-digit reference.

According to investigations, the story is that former FBI director John O'Neil leaked the details of the Executive Order when he ran into successive road-blocks when chasing the tail of bin Laden. Due to Governmental obstacles in his mission to track down bin Laden, he was forced to quit the FBI. However, two weeks later he got a new job as head of Security at the World Trade Center. This was because John knew that bin Laden or some other terrorist would eventually attempt to attack the twin towers. However, on the second day of his new job, Sept 11th, O'Neil was killed whilst trying to rescue people in the south tower.

For media and other reports of the FBI being told to "back off", see our FBI section.

• Executive Order 13223 - Ordering the Ready Reserve of the Armed Forces to Active Duty and Delegating Certain Authorities to the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Transportation (Sep 14th 2001)
• Executive Order 13224 - Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions With Persons Who Commit, Threaten To Commit, or Support Terrorism (Sep 23rd 2001)
• Executive Order 13228 - Establishing the Office of Homeland Security and the Homeland Security Council (Oct 8th 2001)
• Executive Order 13231 - Critical Infrastructure Protection in the Information Age (Oct 16th 2001)
• Executive Order 13234 - Presidential Task Force on Citizen Preparedness in the War on Terrorism (Nov 9th 2001)
• Military Order - Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism (Nov 13th 2001)
• Executive Order 13239 - Designation of Afghanistan and the Airspace Above as a Combat Zone (Dec 12th 2001)

2002 onwards coming soon....

• Executive Orders Issued by President George W. Bush - The White House's own archive of EOs.
• Executive Orders from 2001 archived by The American Presidency Project (TAPP)