The Eleventh Day

by Anthony Summers

  59 never charged: ed. Berger, i.

  60 clues/“Zahid”: Miller & Stone, 137, McDermott, 162.

  61 Zahid uncle: Reeve, 48. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has long been described as Ramzi Yousef’s uncle. The most informative account, by journalist Terry McDermott and colleagues at the Los Angeles Times, concludes that he is the brother of Yousef’s mother, Hameda. Author Steve Coll writes that the CIA concluded that Mohammed is not only Yousef’s uncle, but that the two men’s wives are sisters. Absent documentation, the exact nature of their relationship remains elusive—Arabs sometimes use the word “uncle” loosely. Both men were apparently born in Kuwait to immigrant families from the Baluchistan region of southwest Pakistan. “I am Palestinian on my mother’s side,” Yousef told an Arab newspaper in 1995. “My grandmother is Palestinian” (uncle: e.g. Corbin, 47, Reeve, 91, Time, 6/17/02; informative: McDermott, 107–, 128, & see Fouda & Fielding, 88–; wives: Coll, Ghost Wars, 326; “I am Palestinian”: int. Yousef by Raghida Dergham, Al Hayat, 4/12/95 & see NYT, 4/12/95).

  62 photos of OBL: Financial Times, 2/15/03.

  63 no sign of either brother: KSM’s brother Zahid spent much of the 1990s in the United Arab Emirates, until being deported in 1998 for involvement with the Muslim Brotherhood. He was working as a business executive in Bahrain as of 2010 (New Yorker, 9/13/10).

  64 Yousef many calls: Miller & Stone, 137, NBC News, 10/18/00;

  65 call to KSM: CR, 147, 488n6;

  66 Tiffany Mansions: McDermott, 144;

  67 bar girls/phone: Ressa, 18–;

  68 “Abdul Majid”/met in Pakistan/electronics business/“must have”: FBI 302 of int. Abdul Hakim Ali Murad, 5/11/95, “Various Interrogation Reports,” B24, T1, CF, CR, 147;

  69 “I was”: “Verbatim Transcript ISN 10024”;

  70 “idea”: “Substitution for the Testimony of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,” U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui; target CIA/WTC: CR, 153, 491n33.

  71 “plan”: Philippines National Police, “After Debriefing Report,” 1/20/95. A 1995 FBI memo refers to Murad’s statement about attacking CIA HQ, but cites him as saying he would fly a plane filled with explosives into the building” (WP, 6/6/02, Coll, Ghost Wars, 278–, Lance, Triple Cross, 188, Appendix XI).

  72 Mendoza: CNN, 9/18/01. Former CIA official and deputy director of the State Department’s Office of Counterterrorism, Larry Johnson, has characterized Mendoza’s assertions as “bullshit.” Contemporary Philippines police reports on the Murad interrogation, Johnson asserted in 2006—publishing copies of some of them—do not reflect questioning of Murad by Mendoza. Nor, he said, do they contain any reference to talk of flying airliners into buildings other than the CIA. Johnson wrote that author Peter Lance, who gave credence to Mendoza’s account in his books on 9/11, had been “sold a bill of goods.” Johnson, however, is himself a controversial character, said to have been instrumental in spreading a smear story about President Obama’s wife, Michelle. He has been mocked for having written a New York Times piece stating that “terrorism is not the biggest security challenge confronting the United States”—two months before 9/11 (Larry Johnson, “Peter Lance’s Flawed Triple Cross,” 12/6/06, www.huffingtonpost.com, David Weigel, “Larry Johnson’s Strange Trip,” 6/24/08, www.prospect.org, Larry Johnson, “Whitey Tapes,” 10/21/08, www.noquarterusa.net, Time, 6/12/08).

  73 “The targets”: “Investigating Terror,” CNN, 10/20/01, Ressa, 32—citing 9/16/01 int. of Tiglao.

  74 Garcia/“selected targets”: Village Voice, 9/25/01, Rafael Garcia, “Decoding Bojinka,” Newsbreak (Philippines), 11/15/01, Fouda & Fielding, 99, Lance, Triple Cross, 185 & see “Authorities Told of Hijack Risks,” AP, 3/5/02. In other versions of his account, Garcia recalled that the computer file also named the Pentagon as a proposed target. “Murad,” Garcia wrote, “was to fly the plane that would be crashed into the CIA headquarters.” The subject of the computer, and other evidence on it, came up at Yousef’s trial in 1996. Defense attorneys sought unsuccessfully to challenge the evidence on the computer, alleging tampering (“Murad”: Rafael Garcia, “Decoding Bojinka,” Newsbreak [Philippines], 11/15/01, Village Voice, 9/25/01, Fouda & Fielding, 99; tampering?: NYT, 7/18/96, WP, 12/6/01).

  75 “claims”: CR, 491n33;

  76 FBI “effectively”: JI, Report, 9, 101–, 210;

  77 “We shared”/“I believe”: Portsmouth Herald, 3/5/02, CNN, 3/14/02;

  78 Mendoza insisted: Lance, 1000 Years, 282;

  79 “We told”/“I still”: WP, 12/30/01.

  80 Defense Dept. panel/​“Coming”/​“It was”: WP, 10/2/01 & see re not in published version “Terror 2000,” www.dod.gov.

  CHAPTER 21

  1 “You need”: NYT, 11/14/09—agent was Daniel Byman;

  2 “manager”: “Khalid Shaykh Muhammad: Preeminent Source on Al Qa’ida,” CIA, 7/13/04, released 2009;

  3 “Khalid”/born Kuwait: JI, Report, 30, New Yorker, 9/13/10;

  4 imam/washed bodies: Fox News, 3/14/07;

  5 Palestinians: McDermott, 109;

  6 “so smart”/theater: Financial Times, 2/15/03, New Yorker, 9/13/10. KSM studied first at Chowan College, in Murfreesboro, then at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro. Also attending the latter college was Ramzi Yousef’s brother (New York to Counterterrorism, Charlotte, 6/10/02, FBI 265A-NY-252802, INTELWIRE, CR, 146);

  7 Palestine/​prayers/​reproach: New York to Counterterrorism, Charlotte, 6/10/02, FBI 265A-NY-252802, INTELWIRE, CR, 146, McDermott, 115–;

  8 “racist”: KSM, “Preeminent Source,” McDermott, 114–;

  9 1987/Afghan conflict: CR, 146. During the war, KSM became aide to Abdul Rasool Sayyaf, a former Kabul theology professor and an adherent to a form of Islam similar to the creed practiced in Saudi Arabia. Sayyaf, who lived for some time in Saudi Arabia, had links to bin Laden (Fouda & Fielding, 91);

  10 one brother/two killed: CR, 488n5, Financial Times, 2/15/03;

  11 KSM relatives: e.g. “KSM: Preeminent Source,” Staff Report, “9/11 and Terrorist Travel,” CO, Time, 5/1/03, Reuters, 2/1/08, WP, 4/13/07, across world/Bosnia: CR, 488n5, Fouda & Fielding, 97, Al Jazeera, 5/5/03, McDermott, 175;

  12 short/balding: Fouda & Fielding, 88, Los Angeles Times, 9/1/02, “Khaled Shaikh Mohammad,” information sheet for Rewards for Justice program, Bureau of Diplomatic Security, U.S. Dept. of State;

  13 employment: NY to National Security, Bangkok et al., FBI 265A-NY-252802, 7/8/99, INTELWIRE;

  14 Thani: CR, 147–, 488n5;

  15 indictment: ibid., 73.

  16 tipped off/assisted flying out: The circumstances in which KSM was allowed to escape have been told in some detail by former CIA case officer Robert Baer, drawing on information given him in 1997 by former police chief Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Hamad al-Thani, then in exile in Syria. The Qatari fiasco has also been described by Richard Clarke, and—more circumspectly—by former FBI director Louis Freeh (Baer: Robert Baer, Sleeping with the Devil, NY: Three Rivers, 2003, 18, 190–, Robert Baer, See No Evil, NY: Three Rivers, 2002, 270; Freeh: Statement & Testimony of Louis Freeh, 4/13/04, CO & see CR, 147, 488n5, Staff Statement 5, CO, Bamford, Pretext, 164, Coll, Ghost Wars, 326–, 631n35).

  17 anger: Richard Clarke, 152–;

  18 $5 million/​“Armed”/​lookout: “Mohammad,” information sheet, FBI, INS Lookout Notice, 2/13/96, “KSM, FBI-INS Misc. Info.,” B11, T5, CF.

  19 “al-Balushi”: CR, 276–. e.g., KSM’s nephew Ammar al-Baluchi (also of Baluchi nationality and otherwise known as Ali Abdul Aziz Ali) was allegedly involved in transferring al Qaeda funds to the 9/11 hijackers; another example is senior al Qaeda military commander Abu Faraj al-Libi (the Libyan Mustafa al-’Uzayti). Both were among the group of U.S. captives known as High Value Detainees (“Detainee Biographies,” www.defense.gov);

  20 visa/alias: Staff Report, “Monograph on Terrorist Travel,” CO;

  21 “recruiting”: CR, 255;

  22 “Based on”: Statement of Eleanor Hill, 9/1
8/02, JI.

  23 “failure”: Executive Summary, “CIA Accountability with Respect to the 9/11 Attacks,” Office of the Inspector General, CIA, 6/05. Though a summary was made public after congressional pressure, the full inspector general’s 2005 “Report on CIA Accountability with Respect to the 9/11 Attacks” has not been released. (“Executive Summary,” Central Intelligence Agency, Office of the Inspector General, 06/05, www.cia.gov, NYT, 10/5/05, AP, 5/18/07).

  24 KSM capture: Fouda & Fielding, 181–, Tenet, 251–. Questions were raised as to the circumstances and timing of the arrest. The family of one of the men detained with KSM denied that the fugitive had been in the house. Some reports suggested he had been captured by Pakistani forces acting alone, others that it had been a joint U.S.-Pakistani operation. There were differing claims, too, as to who had custody of the suspect in the immediate aftermath. Red Cross staff and KSM’s own defense team, however, who interviewed the prisoner, have not apparently raised questions as to the timing and circumstances of the arrest (questions: e.g. Sunday Times [London], 3/9/03, NYT, 3/3/03, The Guardian [U.K.], 3/3/03, ABC News, 3/11/03, Fouda & Fielding, 181– & see Paul Thompson, “Is There More to the Capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed than Meets the Eye?,” 3/4/03, www.historycommons.org; Red Cross/defense team: Red Cross Report, 5, 20, 33–, “Verbatim Transcript of Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing for ISN 10024,” www.defense.gov);

  25 “Nothing like”: Tenet, 252;

  26 leads/$25 million: LAT, 3/2/03, Suskind, One Percent, 204–, Guardian (U.K.), 3/11/03, Tenet, 253;

  27 “wonderful”/“hard”: LAT, 3/2/03;

  28 “This is equal”: Fox News, 3/3/03;

  29 “No person”: Tenet, 250;

  30 “disorient”/“break”: LAT, 3/2/03;

  31 “crouched”: Der Spiegel, 10/27/03, New Yorker, 8/13/07;

  32 Commission Report/211: authors’ analysis based on Robert Windrem, “Cheney’s Role Deepens,” 5/13/09, www.thedailybeast.com;

  33 “enhanced”: Special Review, “Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities,” Office of Inspector General, CIA, 5/7/04, www.cia.gov;

  34 “dark side”: transcript, int. of Richard Cheney, Meet the Press, NBC, 9/16/01;

  35 “certain acts”: “Memorandum for Alberto Gonzales from Asst. A.G. Jay Bybee,” 8/1/02.

  36 Red Cross monitors/asked in vain/​“torture”/​leaked/​“suffocation,” etc.: FAQ, www.icrc.org, Mark Danner, “The Red Cross Torture Report: What It Means,” NY Review of Books, 4/30/09, “Report on the Treatment of Fourteen ‘High Value’ Detainees,” International Committee of the Red Cross, 2/07, www.nyrb.com. Measures defined as “torture” or “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” of prisoners of war are illegal under the Third Geneva Convention (1949) and the U.N. Convention Against Torture (1984). To circumvent the treaties, and after advice from the Justice Department, President Bush formally determined in early 2002 that the 1949 Geneva Convention did not apply to the conflict with al Qaeda, and that the group’s detainees therefore did not qualify as “prisoners of war.”

  The Red Cross determined that—in addition to KSM—thirteen other prisoners, suspected of having been in al Qaeda’s “inner circle,” suffered mistreatment constituting torture. The authors here confine themselves to U.S. treatment of prisoners relevant to the 9/11 story, but the mistreatment extended to captives elsewhere—as at Abu Ghraib prison after the invasion of Iraq. As well as pertinent documents referred to below, there has been groundbreaking reporting by Seymour Hersh, Jane Mayer, and Mark Danner (“inner circle”: Summary of High Value Detainee Program, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 9/06, www.c-span.org; torture: Red Cross Report; pertinent documents: e.g. as excerpted in eds. John Ehrenberg et al., The Iraq Papers, NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 2010, 403–. In addition to the previously cited Red Cross Report, see also “The Treatment by the Coalition Forces of Prisoners of War and Other Protected Persons by the Geneva Conventions in Iraq During Arrest, Internment & Interrogation,” Report, International Committee of the Red Cross, 2/04).

  37 “complain”: “Lesson 18,” al Qaeda Manual, www.justice.gov. The “manual” was among items confiscated in May 2000 from the home of a suspected al Qaeda member, Anas al-Liby, following a search by the Manchester (U.K.) police. The document was supplied to the United States, translated, and used by the prosecution in the 2001 embassy bombings trial (transcript, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden et al., U.S. District Court for the Southern District of NY, S [7] 98-CR-1023, 3/26/01, “Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody,” Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, 110th Cong, 2nd Sess., Washington, D.C., U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 11/20/08, Executive Summary, xii).

  38 review acknowledged: Special Review, “Counterterrorism,” & see “Memorandum for John Rizzo, CIA from Asst. A.G. Jay Bybee, 8/1/02, & see LAT, 12/22/02, Telegraph (U.K.), 3/9/03;

  39 “my eyes”: Red Cross Report.

  40 “If anything”: Special Review, “Counterterrorism.” The reference to a threat to kill KSM’s children appears in the CIA’s 2004 “Special Review” of counterterrorism detention and interrogation activities. According to the 2007 statement of another detainee’s father, KSM’s children were at one point “denied food and water,” at another “mentally tortured by having ants or other creatures put on their legs to scare them and get them to say where their father was hiding.” A Justice Department memo released in 2009 shows that approval was given to use insects to frighten an adult detainee into talking, while another document reports that the CIA never used the technique. According to a cousin, one of KSM’s sons is mentally disabled and the other epileptic. As of this writing both boys were reportedly with their mother in Iran (threat: Special Review, Office of the Inspector General, CIA, 5/7/04, www.cia.gov; statement: “Verbatim Transcript of Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing for ISN 10020,” www.defense.gov—the statement was made by Ali Kahn, father of Majid Kahn; memos: Memorandum for John Rizzo, CIA from Jay Bybee, Asst. A.G., 8/1/02, Memorandum for John Rizzo, CIA from Stephen Bradbury, Principal Asst. Deputy A.G., 5/10/05, www.aclu.org; disabled/epileptic: New Yorker, 9/13/10; with mother: ibid., WP, 11/14/09).

  41 Poland/“verge”/“I would”: Red Cross Report;

  42 14 seconds/2½ minutes: ABC News, 11/18/05;

  43 183 times: Special Review, “Counterterrorism.”

  44 long history: “Waterboarding: A Tortured History,” NPR, 11/3/07, NYT, 3/9/08, WP, 11/5/06, Margulies, 73–;

  45 “in violation”: ibid., 74;

  46 executed Japanese: “History Supports McCain’s Stance on Waterboarding,” 11/29/07, www.politifact.com;

  47 “The United States”/“alternative”/“separate program”/“I thought”/“take potential”: “President Bush Discusses Creation of Military Commissions to Try Suspect Terrorists,” 9/6/06, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov, George Bush, Decision Points, London: Virgin, 2010, 169;

  48 “a great many”: NY Review of Books, 4/30/09;

  49 “would not”: New Yorker, 1/21/08;

  50 “provable”: Toronto Star, 11/20/10;

  51 agents: NYT, 6/22/08, 4/23/09;

  52 “intensely disputed”: NY Review of Books, 4/30/09;

  53 Obama banned: ibid.;

  54 “The use”: Mark Danner, “US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites,” NY Review of Books, 4/9/09.

  55 “Any piece”: NY Review of Books, 4/30/09.

  56 spewed information: KSM’s most recent known admissions, to the military tribunal in Guantánamo, included the “A to Z” of 9/11, the 1993 attack on the Trade Center, the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, the failed attack on a plane by shoe bomber Richard Reid, and the murder of U.S. soldiers in Kuwait. He said he planned more than twenty other crimes, including a “Second Wave” of attacks on American landmarks to follow 9/11, attacks on nuclear power plants, on London’s Heathrow Airport, on Gibraltar, on the Panama Canal, on NATO headquarters in Brussels, on four Israeli targets, and
on targets in Thailand and South Korea. Whatever the truth about most of this string of claims, there may now be less doubt than previously as to his claim to have killed reporter Pearl. A 2011 study by Georgetown University and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, however, indicated that KSM had—as he claimed—been the killer. A man named Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was sentenced to death in connection with Pearl’s murder in 2002 and is currently imprisoned in Karachi awaiting an appeal (“Verbatim Transcript of Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing for ISN 10024,” www.defense.gov, AP, 3/18/07, New Yorker, 1/21/08, Irish Times, 1/21/11, JTA, 1/20/11, Times of Oman, 3/28/11, Musharraf, 228).