57 “Detainee has”: New Yorker, 8/13/07;
58 “I gave”: Red Cross Report;
59 “some level”: Times-Dispatch (Richmond, VA), 7/6/08;
60 “We were not”: “Cheney’s Role Deepens,” 5/13/09, www.thedailybeast.com;
61 “Never, ever”: Richard Ben-Veniste, The Emperor’s New Clothes, NY: Thomas Dunne, 2009, 248;
62 Commission not told/turned down/blocked: MFR of int. George Tenet, 12/23/03, Kean & Hamilton, 119–;
63 “incomplete”: Shenon, 391;
64 “We never”: New Republic, 5/23/05;
65 “reliance”: Farmer, 362;
66 “Assessing”: CR, 146. Of 1,744 footnotes in the report, it has been estimated that more than a quarter refer to information extracted from captives during questioning that employed the interrogation techniques authorized after 9/11 (Newsweek, 3/14/09).
67 Fouda scoop: Fouda & Fielding, 23–, 38, 105, 114–, 148–, 156–, & see int. Yosri Fouda for Paladin InVision, 2006, conv. Nick Fielding, corr. Yosri Fouda, 2011. Fouda’s book on the case, written with Nick Fielding of the Sunday Times (London), was published as Masterminds of Terror in 2003;
68 Binalshibh: Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni, was an associate of the three 9/11 hijackers based in Germany until 2000, when they left for the United States. He had himself wished to take part in the operation but, unable to obtain a U.S. visa, functioned as go-between. Like KSM, Binalshibh was by 2002 a fugitive (Staff Report, “9/11 and Terrorist Travel,” CO, 5, 11–, 36);
69 footnote: CR, 492n40;
70 evidence: “Summary of Evidence for Combatant Status Review Tribunal,” 2/8/07, http://projects.nytimes.com & see int. Udo Jacob—Motassadeq attorney;
71 Suskind: Suskind, One Percent, 102–, 133–, 156;
72 Bergen: Bergen, OBL I Know, 301–.
73 authentic: Others, notably Paul Thompson and Chaim Kupferberg, have raised doubts about Fouda’s account. Both noted that Fouda did not tell the truth about the date of the interview with KSM and Binalshibh, raising the possibility that his overall reporting of the interviews may be inaccurate. It is true that the reported date of the interview changed after the story broke in September 2002. While Fouda initially claimed the interviews were conducted in Karachi in June of that year, he later revealed that the interviews had taken place two months earlier, in the third week of April. Questioned about the discrepancy in late 2002, Fouda said, “I lied because I needed to lie … if something went wrong and I needed to get in touch with them … they [KSM and Binalshibh] would be the only ones who would know that I had met them one month earlier than I had let on, and so I’d know I was talking to the right people” (doubts: Paul Thompson, “Is There More to the Capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed Than Meets the Eye?,” 3/03, www.historycommons.org, Chaim Kupferberg, “Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: The Official Legend of 9/11 Is a Fabricated Setup,” 3/15/07, www.globalresearch.ca; changed dates: Sunday Times (London), 9/8/02, Guardian (U.K.), 3/4/03, Fouda & Fielding, 23, 29, 148; “I lied”: int. Fouda by Abdallah Schleifer, Fall/Winter 2002, www.tbsjournal.com.
74 “a close”: Fouda & Fielding, 113;
75 chairman: ibid., 117.
CHAPTER 22
1 first meeting: CR, 488n1;
2 “very calm”: In the Footsteps of Bin Laden, CNN, 8/23/06;
3 projects: MFR 04013804, 12/4/03, Wright, 168–;
4 all manner: Bergen, OBL I Know, 133;
5 rich and poor: bin Ladens & Sasson, 111, 115;
6 financial support S.A.: Time, 9/15/03, Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11, Berkeley: Univ. of Calif. Press, 2007, 149–;
7 veterans: Bergen, Holy War Inc., 86, Richard Clarke, 137;
8 OBL to Bosnia/citizenship: Ottawa Citizen, 12/15/01, WSJ, 11/1/01;
9 Flottau: John Schindler, Unholy Terror, Minneapolis: Zenith, 2007, 123– & see “British Journalist Eye-Witnessed Osama Bin Laden Entering Alija Izetbegovic’s Office,” 2/3/06. www.slobodan-milosevic.org, The Times (London), 9/28/07;
10 KSM twice: CR, 147, 488n5;
11 funds Chechnya: Benjamin & Simon, 113, Loretta Napoleoni, Terror Incorporated, NY: Seven Stories, 2005, 95;
12 holdouts: Newsweek, 8/19/02.
13 Two hijackers: JI, Report, 131, Testimony of George Tenet, 6/18/02, JI. The future 9/11 hijackers who fought in Bosnia were Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. Zacarias Moussaoui, who was arrested before 9/11, reportedly served as a recruiter for the Chechen mujahideen (Mihdhar/Hazmi: Staff Statement 16, CO; Moussaoui: Legat, Paris to Minneapolis, FBI 199M-MP-60130, 8/22/01, Defense Exhibit 346, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Tenet, 202);
14 Zawahiri in Sudan/directed/Mubarak: Wright, 185–, 213, 215–, bin Ladens & Sasson, 129–;
15 Zubaydah/manager: CR, 59, 169, 175, Thomas Jocelyn, “The Zubaydah Dossier,” 8/17/09, www.weeklystandard.com;
16 “The snake”: Testimony of Jamal al-Fadl, U.S. v. Usama Bin Laden et al., U.S. District Court for the Southern District of NY, S(7) 98-CR-1023, 2/6/01, CR, 59;
17 Yemen attacks: Staff Statement 15, CO, Atwan, 166. There were no American fatalities in the bombings, but an Australian tourist was killed (Staff Statement 15, CO);
18 Somalia/Black Hawks: transcript int. of OBL by Hamid Mir, 3/18/97, www.fas.org, Staff Statement 15, CO, int. Abdel Bari Atwan, Atwan, 36;
19 Riyadh attack: CR, 60, Staff Statement 15, CO, Wright, 211–, Burke, 154–;
20 “paved”: ed. Lawrence, 36–;
21 “adopt”: int. OBL by Hamid Mir;
22 Dhahran: Staff Statement 15, CO, CR, 60, Bamford, Pretext, 163, Benjamin & Simon, 224, William Simpson, 275;
23 Iran responsible?: CR, 60;
24 traveled Qatar/purchase: Christopher Blanchard, “Qatar: Background & U.S. Relations,” Congressional Research Service, Washington, D.C., 1/24/08, Stephen Hayes, “Case Closed,” 11/24/03, www.weeklystandard.com, Gareth Porter, “Investigating the Khobar Tower Bombing,” 6/24/09, CounterPunch.
25 “heroes”: ed. Lawrence, 52. The debate over responsibility for the Dhahran attack was prolonged and bitter. Vital reading on the subject includes the relevant part of a memoir by the FBI director of the day, Louis Freeh, and—for a very different view—a series of 2009 articles by reporter Gareth Porter (Louis Freeh, My FBI, NY: St. Martin’s, 2005, 1–, Gareth Porter, CounterPunch, 6/24/09);
26 interview: int. Abdel bari Atwan, Atwan, 36;
27 “They called”: France-Soir, 8/27/98, citing int. of 1995 & see bin Ladens & Sasson, 127;
28 royals persuaded/“They beseeched”: bin Ladens & Sasson, 104, Corbin, 57, MFR 04013955, 12/3/03, AP, 6/15/08, Bergen, OBL I Know, 150;
29 “behavior”: “State Dept. Issues Fact Sheet on Bin Laden,” 8/14/96 cited at Brisard & Dasquié, 169;
30 share sold off: Staff Report, “Monograph on Terrorist Financing, CO, Lacey, Inside the Kingdom, 177–, AP, 6/15/08.
31 formal cutoff/future: Bergen, Holy War Inc., 102, CR, 62, bin Ladens & Sasson, 128. Men who worked for bin Laden in Sudan have recalled him saying that money was short. One man, Jamal al-Fadl, defected following a clash over funding and became a useful informant for the United States. Bin Laden’s son Omar remembered a time in the Sudan when funds were limited after his father “lost access to his huge bank accounts in the Kingdom” (money short/Fadl: Testimony of L’Hossaine Kerchtou, 2/22/01, & Jamal al-Fadl, 2/7/01, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden et al., U.S. District Court for the Southern District of NY, S[7]98-CR-1023, CR, 62; “lost”: bin Ladens & Sasson, 12).
32 “Blood is”: int. of Rahimullah Yusufzai for Paladin InVision, 2006, Bergen, OBL I Know, 203 but see FBI 302s of int. bin Laden family members, “Saudi Flights,” B70, T5, CF;
33 “OBL has kept”: Note de Synthèse, 7/24/00 in “Oussama Bin Laden,” leaked DGSE report, 9/13/01, seen by authors;
34 Yeslam: Scheuer, Osama bin Laden, 28;
35 “Some female”: Statement of Vincent Cannistraro, Hearings, Committee on International Realations, U.S. House of Reps, 107th Cong., 1st Se
ss., 10/3/01.
36 funding cut off: Whether or not bin Laden was really “disowned” by his family, there were over the years many suggestions that he had a personal fortune of some $300 million—from which he funded operations. According to the 9/11 Commission, this is merely “urban legend.” A commission analysis suggests he received approximately $1 million a year from the family coffers between 1970 and 1993—the year in which his share of the family business was sold and OBL’s portion “frozen.” The author Peter Bergen, writing in 2001, cited a source close to the family as saying bin Laden’s inheritance from his father was $35 million. In his 2008 biography of the bin Laden clan, Steve Coll stated that the value placed on OBL’s share of the family business at the time he was reportedly stripped of it was a surprisingly low $9.9 million. Even taken together, these sums total far less than the rumored $300 million figure.
The approximately $30 million consumed annually by al Qaeda operations prior to 9/11 apparently came from a core of “financial facilitators” and “fundraisers” in the Gulf—particularly in Saudi Arabia. The 9/11 operation itself cost only $400,000–$500,000. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told his interrogators that bin Laden provided 85–90 percent of that. Investigators believe, however, that this money came not from personal funds, but rather from monies he controlled (official estimates: MFR 03010990, 11/4/03, CF, FBI memo, “Ali Ahmad Mesdaq, International Terrorism, Usama bin Laden,” 1/28/02, INTELWIRE, WP, 8/28/98; popular reports: e.g. WP, 8/28/98, “Tracing bin Laden’s Money,” 9/21/01, www.ict.org; “myth”/$1 million: Staff Report, “Monograph on Terrorist Financing,” CO; $35 million: Bergen, Holy War Inc., 101–; $9.9 million: Coll, Bin Ladens, 405–, 485–; $30 million/“fundraisers”/KSM: Staff Report, “Monograph on Terrorist Financing,” CO).
37 $4.5 million: Note de Synthèse;
38 “$3,000,000”/“wealthy Saudis”/“siphoning”: Statement of Vincent Cannistraro, Boston Herald, 10/14/01;
39 considerable: Chouet int. for Le Monde, 3/29/07, http://alain.chouet.free.fr, Politique Étrangère, March/April 03, int. Alain Chouet;
40 $30 million/donations/“wealthy”: Staff Report, “Monograph on Terrorist Financing,” CO;
41 “subterfuge”/manipulate: Chouet int. for Le Monde, 3/29/07, http://alain.chouet.free.fr, int. Alain Chouet.
42 “sponsorship”/OBL funding: MFR 04013804, 12/4/03, MFR 04013803, 12/30/03, WP, 10/3/01;
43 “We couldn’t”/“We asked”/“hot potato”: USA Today, 11/12/01, Bill Clinton, My Life, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004, 797–;
44 “My calculation”: WP, 10/3/01;
45 “probably the biggest”: Sunday Times (London), 1/5/02;
46 “perhaps”/“probably the best”: Frontline: “Hunting bin Laden,” www.pbs.org, New Yorker, 1/24/00.
47 “whisked”/refueled: bin Ladens & Sasson, 139–, 142, 309. Other accounts have suggested that the plane was allowed to refuel in Qatar. The authors have deferred to what Omar bin Laden—who was there—said. According to him, the plane stopped to refuel at Shiraz, in Iran (Coll, Ghost Wars, 325);
48 “Our plane”: bin Ladens & Sasson, 180–, Asia Times, 11/28/01;
49 Jalalabad: bin Ladens & Sasson, 149–, CR, 65;
50 desolate/“new home”/“I was put”: bin Ladens & Sasson, 150–, 156, 161, 174—, 176–;
51 cabin: Atwan, 28, Bergen, Holy War Inc., 93;
52 Kalashnikov: bin Ladens & Sasson, 165;
53 tapes/fax: int. Dr. Flagg Miller, Univ. of Calif.;
54 satellite phone: Bamford, Shadow Factory, 8, Gunaratna, 141;
55 dictating: bin Ladens & Sasson, 165;
56 fax transmission: int. Abdel Bari Atwan, Atwan, 53;
57 “summit”/hundreds of thousands: Flagg Miller, “On ‘The Summit of the Hindu Kush’: Osama bin Laden’s 1996 Declaration of War Reconsidered,” unpub. ms. courtesy of Miller.
58 “Declaration”: full text, “Ladenese Epistle: Declaration of War,” Pts. I, II, III, www.washingtonpost.com [web only], 9/21/01. Though often described as a fatwa, the declaration seems not to fit the usual meaning of that word—“a ruling on a point of Islamic law given by a recognized authority” (worldnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn);
59 KSM-Atef meeting: CR, 148.
60 traveled together: The authors suggest that the travel together may have been to Bosnia, because—as noted earlier in this chapter—bin Laden and KSM are both known to have made visits there during that period (JI, Report, 313).
61 KSM proposal/“theater”/“Why do you”: KSM SUBST, CR, 148–, 153–, 489n11–14, Tenet, 251. The source of this second version of the proposal, citing bin Laden’s supposed retort, was reportedly Abu Zubaydah—another senior aide to bin Laden (CR 491n35, JI, Report, 130);
62 “would not focus”: KSM SUBST;
63 OBL priority: Tenet, 248.
64 “not convinced”: KSM SUBST. Bin Laden did, however, invite KSM to join al Qaeda, he told the CIA. He demurred, he said, because he wanted to retain the ability to approach other terrorist groups (CR 154).
65 video of Twin Towers, etc.: “The Fifth Estate: War Without Borders,” www.cbc.ca, AP, 7/17/02, CR, 530n145, AP, 7/17/02. The filming in the United States was done in 1997 by a Syrian living in Spain named Ghasoub al-Abrash Ghalyoun, who was arrested after 9/11. According to the Spanish Interior Ministry, “the style and duration of the recordings far exceed tourist curiosity.” Spanish investigators believed that an al Qaeda courier delivered copies of the tapes to Afghanistan (AP, 7/17/02, CR, 530n145, “The Fifth Estate: War Without Borders,” www.cbc.ca).
66 “to study”: KSM SUBST.
67 “individuals”: Statement of Eleanor Hill, 2/17/02, JI. The 9/11 Commission noted that there had been significant radical Islamic activity in Arizona prior to 9/11. The Islamic Center of Tucson was a branch of the Office of Services, long since established by bin Laden and Abdullah Azzam in Pakistan. It had begun distributing its journal throughout the United States as early as 1986. Two former FBI informants claimed after 9/11 that they had alerted the FBI to the presence of suspicious Arabs at Arizona flight schools in 1996 (Commission: CR, 226–, 520–; Center: Steven Emerson, American Jihad, NY: Free Press, 2002, 129–, Frontline: “The Man Who Knew,” www.pbs.org, NYT, 6/7/02; claim: WP, 9/23/01, 5/24/02, NYT, 5/24/02, FBI IG, Aukai Collins, My Jihad, Guilford, CT: Lyons, 2002, 213–).
68 “different person”/beard, etc.: “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” FBI, 2/1/07, INTELWIRE, Report, JI, 135, Testimony of George Tenet, 6/18/02, JI, Graham with Nussbaum, 40–;
69 Atta/27: Staff Statement 16, WSJ, 10/16/01, McDermott, 2–, 31 but see re Mecca twice 57;
70 “colony”/“Resistance”: Fisk, The Great War, 21–.
Part V: PERPETRATORS
CHAPTER 23
1 Wiley: MFR 04017164, 11/25/03;
2 “independent”: JI, Report, Appendix, 5;
3 “flake”: Benjamin & Simon, 243;
4 “terrorist financier”: Richard Clarke, 96, Tenet, xi;
5 “Ford Foundation”: Benjamin & Simon, 242;
6 not named: Executive Order 12947, 1/23/95, Federal Register, Vol. 60, No. 16, Staff Report, “Monograph on Terrorist Financing,” CO;
7 9 speeches: Richard Clarke, 129–, e.g., “American Security in a Changing World,” speech, 8/5/96, U.S. Department of State, Dispatch, Vol. 7, No. 32, & see “Presidential Speech Archive,” www.millercenter.org;
8 PDD-39/rendition/coordinated: “Memorandum for the Vice President et al. from William J. Clinton,” 6/21/95 [PDD-39], www.fas.org, Benjamin & Simon, 230, CR, 101;
9 badgered: Richard Clarke, 135;
10 “foaming”: Benjamin & Simon, 243;
11 “It just seemed”: Clarke, 135;
12 “asleep”: Hollingsworth with Mitchell, 101;
13 approval of Lake: Bamford, Pretext, 205, int. Michael Scheuer for Paladin InVision;
14 dozen/40: CR, 479n2;
15 FBI liaison/“buzz saw”: Statement of George Tene
t, 10/17/02, JI, FBI IG;
16 focus/women/shopping complex/committed/zealot: Shenon, 188–, MFR 04020389, 6/21/04, CR, 109;
17 CTC-TFL: Staff Report, “Monograph on Terrorist Financing,” CO;
18 more operational: MFR 04017164, 11/25/03;
19 changed name: Tenet, 100;
20 “My God”/“truly dangerous”: Shenon, 189;
21 “civilians and military”: int. of OBL for ABC News, transcript available at Frontline: “Hunting bin Laden,” www.pbs.org;
22 “They chose”: int. of OBL for CNN, 3/97, www.cnn.com;
23 “If they”: Bergen, OBL I Know, 242;
24 “snatch”: Richard Clarke, 149;
25 surveillance/human intelligence: Farmer, 29;
26 eavesdropping/phone: Bamford, Pretext, 162–, Gunaratna, 12, WP, 4/24/01;
27 training camp: CR, 111;
28 CIA plan/“half-assed”/“perfect”: Tenet, 112–, Wright, 265–, Michael Scheuer, Marching Toward Hell, New York: Free Press, 2008, 272n3, CR, 111–, Richard Clarke, 149;
29 memo: Scheuer, Marching, 271;
30 “They could not”: Shenon, 190;
31 Nairobi bomb/casualties: Report of Accountability Review Boards, Bombings of the US Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on Aug. 7, 1998, U.S. Dept. of State, www.fas.org, Wright, 270, Corbin, 73;
32 Dar es Salaam: Report of Accountability Review Boards, The Independent (U.K.), 8/8/98;
33 worst: Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, 183, Robert Johnston, “Worst Terrorist Attacks—Woldwide,” www.johnstonarchive.net;
34 bomber/met OBL/for OBL: Testimony of Stephen Gaudin, U.S. v. Usama Bin Laden et al., U.S. District Court for the Southern District of NY, S(7) 98-CR-1023, 1/8/01, Bergen, Holy War Inc., 107, Corbin, 71, Criminal Complaint Against Mohamed Rashed Al-’Owhali, U.S. Federal Court for the Southern District of NY, 8/26/98, http://avalon.law.yale.edu, Reeve, 198–;