The Central Intelligence Agency's clandestine New York station was destroyed in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center, seriously disrupting United States intelligence operations while bringing the war on terrorism dangerously close to home for America's spy agency, government officials say.

The C.I.A.'s undercover New York station was in the 47-story building at 7 World Trade Center, one of the smaller office towers destroyed in the aftermath of the collapse of the twin towers that morning. All of the agency's employees at the site were safely evacuated soon after the hijacked planes hit the twin towers, the officials said.

The intelligence agency's employees were able to watch from their office windows while the twin towers burned just before they evacuated their own building.

Building 7 was one of New York City's larger buildings. A sleek bronze-colored skyscraper with a trapezoidal footprint, it occupied an entire city block and rose over 600 feet above street level.

Built in 1985, it was formerly the headquarters of the junk-bond firm Drexel Burnham Lambert, which contributed to the Savings and Loans collapse, prompting the $500-billion taxpayer-underwritten bailout of the latter 1980s. At the time of its destruction, it exclusively housed government agencies and financial institutions. It contained offices of the IRS, Secret Service, and SEC

CLICK HERE for a list of WTC 7 occupants (This list is based on a table published by CNN.com, which did not include CIA, whose tenancy was disclosed after the attack in the New York Times article).

One of the most interesting tenants was then-Mayor Giuliani's Office of Emergency Management, and its emergency command center on the 23rd floor. This floor received 15 million dollars worth of renovations, including independent and secure air and water supplies, and bullet and bomb resistant windows designed to withstand 200 MPH winds. The 1993 bombing must have been part of the rationale for the command center, which overlooked the Twin Towers, a prime terrorist target.

How curious that on the day of the attack, Guiliani and his entourage set up shop in a different headquarters, abandoning the special bunker designed precisely for such an event.

"Molten Steel was found in pools in the basement of WTC-1, WTC-2 & WTC-7. Kerosene-based jet fuel, (or the other combustibles normally found in the towers), cannot generate the heat required to melt steel, especially in an oxygen-poor environment like a deep basement." Thermite can.

CLICK HERE to view overwhelming physical WTC 7 Gallery of Evidence