36 “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).
37 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
38 “my eyes”: Red Cross Report.
39 “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).
40 Poland/“verge”/“I would”: Red Cross Report
41 14 seconds/2½ minutes: ABC News, 11/18/05
42 183 times: Special Review, “Counterterrorism.”
43 long history: “Waterboarding: A Tortured History,” NPR, 11/3/07, NYT, 3/9/08, WP, 11/5/06, Margulies, 73–
44 “in violation”: ibid., 74
45 executed Japanese: “History Supports McCain’s Stance on Waterboarding,” 11/29/07, www.politifact.com
46 “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
47 “a great many”: NY Review of Books, 4/30/09
48 “would not”: New Yorker, 1/21/08
49 “provable”: Toronto Star, 11/20/10
50 agents: NYT, 6/22/08, 4/23/09
51 “intensely disputed”: NY Review of Books, 4/30/09
52 Obama banned: ibid.
53 “The use”: Mark Danner, “US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites,” NY Review of Books, 4/9/09.
54 “Any piece”: NY Review of Books, 4/30/09.
55 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).
56 “Detainee has”: New Yorker, 8/13/07
57 “I gave”: Red Cross Report
58 “some level”: Times-Dispatch (Richmond, VA), 7/6/08
59 “We were not”: “Cheney’s Role Deepens,” 5/13/09, www.thedailybeast.com
60 “Never, ever”: Richard Ben-Veniste, The Emperor’s New Clothes, NY: Thomas Dunne, 2009, 248
61 Commission not told/turned down/blocked: MFR of int. George Tenet, 12/23/03, Kean & Hamilton, 119–
62 “incomplete”: Shenon, 391
63 “We never”: New Republic, 5/23/05
64 “reliance”: Farmer, 362
65 “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).
66 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
67 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)
68 footnote: CR, 492n40
69 evidence: “Summary of Evidence for Combatant Status Review Tribunal,” 2/8/07, http://projects.nytimes.com & see int. Udo Jacob—Motassadeq attorney
70 Suskind: Suskind, One Percent, 102–, 133–, 156
71 Bergen: Bergen, OBL I Know, 301–.
72 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.
73 “a close”: Fouda & Fielding, 113
74 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 Sess., 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 cab
in: 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).
The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden Page 64