by Steve Coll
6. Swanson and Crewdson, Chicago Tribune, February 20, 2003, reported that “police records” they obtained showed that “among the numbers called were three belonging to radical Saudi clerics… . The calls occurred soon after the three clerics-Nasser al-Omar, Safar al-Hawali, and Saman al-Auda-were freed in 1999.” The calls were reportedly placed from a phone belonging to Motassadeq.
7. “A house of study … attached to his mother” is from McDermott, Los Angeles Times, January 27, 2002. “Raising him as a girl” is from The New York Times, October 10, 2001. “Almost tricked him” and “embodied the idea of drawing” are from McDermott.
8. “Danger” is from The Washington Post, July 15, 2002. “The victors will come … paradise is rising” is from Laabs and McDermott, Los Angeles Times, January 27, 2003.
9. National Commission staff statement no. 16, pp. 2-4, 13-14, 18-19.
10. Ibid.
11. Chicago Tribune, February 26, 2003.
12. The information on Musharraf ‘s family is from The New Yorker, August 12, 2002.
Musharraf ‘s attitude toward the Taliban is from an interview with Pervez Musharraf, May 25, 2002, Islamabad, Pakistan (SC), and interviews with Pakistani and U.S. officials who talked regularly with Musharraf.
13. “He took off his commando jacket” and “Down to earth” are from The New Yorker, August 12, 2002.
14. What the embassy pieced together is from interviews with U.S. officials. Also, Bruce Riedel, “American Diplomacy and the 1999 Kargil Summit at Blair House,” Center for Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, Policy Paper Series 2002.
15. That Musharraf briefed Sharif and that Sharif approved is from multiple sources including U.S. officials. This remains a subject of controversy among some Pakistani commentators and political figures.
16. That the information was obtained from cables from Islamabad and a dozen secret letters from interviews with U.S. officials. Reports of Pakistan preparing its nuclear arsenal for possible use is from Riedel, “American Diplomacy and the 1999 Kargil Summit.” Riedel, then at the National Security Council, cites one “well-informed assessment” which concluded that a Pakistani strike on Bombay alone with a small weapon “would kill between 150,000 and 850,000.” Clinton’s June 19 letter is from Madeleine Albright’s written testimony to the National Commission, March 23, 2004.
17. Riedel, ibid. “Sharif seemed to be hedging his bet on whether this would be a round trip.”
18. Ibid.
19. Interview with Mushahid Hussain, May 21, 2002, Islamabad, Pakistan (SC).
20. “I want to help you” is from an interview with a U.S. official. “A pretty good standard … intelligence for action” is from an interview with a second U.S. official.
21. Riedel, “American Diplomacy and the 1999 Kargil Summit.”
22. Ziauddin with Pickering is from an interview with a U.S. official. The October 7 meeting between Ziauddin and Omar is from Michael Griffin, Reaping the Whirlwind, p. 233, and interviews with U.S. and Pakistani officials.
23. That Ziauddin ordered the CIA-trained commandos to protect Sharif from a coup is from an interview with a U.S. official familiar with detailed American intelligence reporting on the incident.
24. The account here of Ziauddin, the Tenth Corps, and the end of the CIA-funded commando unit is from interviews with seven U.S. officials. Some accounts of the coup published in South Asia and elsewhere have speculated that Musharraf moved against Sharif to block Ziauddin from ending ISI’s support for the Taliban-that it was ISI, in effect, that created the coup. But Ziauddin was too weak a figure to be much of a threat. Besides, the evidence makes clear that Musharraf was not actively planning a coup in early October. Otherwise, he would not have taken a working vacation to Sri Lanka. It was Sharif who brought his own reign down by misjudging his support in the army and with ISI’s rank and file when he tried to fire Musharraf.
25. The New Yorker, August 12, 2002.
26. Interview with a U.S. official.
27. Interview with a senior Pakistani official close to Musharraf.
28. Interview with Thomas Pickering, April 24, 2002, Rosslyn, Virginia (SC). “Diverted the discussion … return to democracy” is from an interview with a second Clinton administration official. A central player in the U.S. relationship with Musharraf, both during the Kargil crisis and after the coup, was the American Marine Corps general Anthony Zinni, then commander-in-chief of CENTCOM. Early in 2000, while traveling in Central Asia, Zinni told Dana Priest of The Washington Post, “If Pakistan fails, we have major problems. If Musharraf fails, hardliners could take over, or fundamentalists, or chaos. We can’t let Musharraf fail.”
29. Interview with David Boren, September 16, 2002, Norman, Oklahoma (GW).
30. Testimony of George Tenet, Joint Inquiry Committee, October 17, 2002, and the committee’s final report, Appendix, p. 29.
31. “So great was the fear” is from Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, p. 311.
32. Judith Miller, The New York Times, January 15, 2001.
33. The information regarding Berger’s meetings is from his testimony before the Joint Inquiry Committee, September 19, 2002. “Operations we knew … early January 2000” is from testimony of an unidentified “senior officer” of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center before the Joint Inquiry Committee, September 20, 2002.
34. The account of the cash and course notes is from The Seattle Times, June 28, 2002.
35. Clinton’s call to Musharraf is from an interview with a senior U.S. official who reviewed notes of the conversation. Milam is from National Commission final report, p. 176.
36. Benjamin and Simon, Age of Sacred Terror, pp. 31-32.
37. Interview with Cofer Black, September 13, 2002 (SC).
38. “Provided a kind of tuning fork … what they were doing” is from testimony of the Counterterrorist Center officer, September 20, 2002.
39. Eleanor Hill, Joint Inquiry Staff report, September 20, 2002.
40. Interview with Cofer Black, September 13, 2002. National Commission, Staff Statement no. 2, p. 4.
41. Eleanor Hill report, September 20, 2002.
42. Ibid.
43. Tenet’s testimony, October 17, 2002. In her independent review of this failure, Eleanor Hill concluded that the CIA’s “practice for watch listing was often based upon an individual officer’s level of personal experience with, and understanding of, how other government agencies received and used this information. There also may have been too much emphasis on making certain there was a minimum fixed amount of information on an individual before he or she was watch listed.”
44. Eleanor Hill report, September 20, 2002.
45. For a full account of how the Malaysia plotters were connected to the plans eventually carried out on September 11, see National Commission staff statement no. 16, which draws on interrogation statements of al Qaeda leaders in U.S. custody.
46. Testimony of George Tenet, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, February 2, 2000.
47. Tenet testimony, October 17, 2002.
48. Ziad Jarrah was detained by authorities in the United Arab Emirates in January 2000 for an irregularity in his passport. But the CIA was not involved in this incident in any way, and the detention did not lead to any surveillance or further action, according to Eleanor Hill of the Joint Inquiry Staff.
CHAPTER 27: “YOU CRAZY WHITE GUYS”
1. Interviews with multiple U.S. officials and aides to Massoud familiar with the intelligence collection efforts at Derunta. After September 11, documentary evidence surfaced that confirmed al Qaeda’s interest in chemical weapons. The hard drive of a computer used by Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul showed that around the summer of 1999 he exchanged notes with bin Laden’s military commander, Mohammed Atef, about how to build a laboratory for what they called the “yogurt” program. This was a modest effort with an initial budget of only $2,000. Documents found by journalists at Rishikor, an al Qaeda camp used by Uz
beks and others outside of Kabul, described a curriculum with a section on the manufacture of “major poisons and gases,” including ricin and cyanide. See The Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2002, and The New York Times, March 17, 2002.
2. “What do you think this is?” is from an interview with a U.S. official. “We’re on mules” is from an interview with a second U.S. official.
3. Interviews with two U.S. officials.
4. Ibid.
5. Interview with a senior aide to Massoud who was involved with the CIA liaison. Speaking of the events of September 11, the adviser continued: “Those who criticize the security agencies in the United States for the loss of life, property, and suffering, they are wrong. They have to criticize the law, they have to criticize the people who really restricted, people with knowledge to do something.” All quotations from American officials in the previous four paragraphs are from the author’s interviews with senior officials directly involved. After September 11, Clinton’s White House aides and CIA officers at Langley offered almost opposite views about the impact of the legal guidance on covert operations with Massoud and others. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, who was primarily responsible for the classified legal authorizations, testified to the Joint Inquiry Committee: “We were not pursuing a law enforcement model… . We were trying to kill bin Laden and his lieutenants.” Berger cited the president’s willingness to fire cruise missiles at bin Laden-if the Saudi could be reliably located-as evidence of this intent. But at the same hearings Cofer Black emphasized that White House rules had inhibited CIA operations, especially those with proxy forces such as Massoud. “We did not have … sufficiently flexible rules of engagement,” he said. Asked if the United States should “consider revoking the prohibition against the use of lethal force” in counterterrorist operations, Black replied, “Yes.”
6. “Relationship … minor issue,” from an interview with an intelligence aide to Massoud. The perception of a double standard in American policy toward Massoud is from interviews with multiple aides and advisers.
7. Interviews with multiple U.S. officials. Quotations from Black’s briefing documents are from the Joint Inquiry Committee’s final report, pp. 387-88. That unilateral reports outstripped liaison reports in 1999: Tenet’s testimony before the Joint Inquiry Committee, October 17, 2002. “By 9/11, a map would show that these collection programs and human networks were in place in such numbers as to nearly cover Afghanistan,” Tenet testified. That CIA never penetrated bin Laden’s leadership group prior to September 11 is from the Joint Inquiry Committee’s final report, p. 91. “If the Drug Enforcement Administration can put actual, salaried American officers undercover in clannish narcotrafficking organizations in foreign countries, surely the CIA can learn to penetrate aggressively proselytizing Islamic fundamentalist organizations,” Senator Richard Shelby complained of this failure in 2003.
8. Interviews with U.S. officials. Albright quotation from her written testimony to the National Commission, March 23, 2004.
9. Ibid. “Anytime … next day at noon” is from an interview with a U.S. official.
10. Ibid. Abdullah recalled receiving CIA satellite maps of the Uruzgan camp: interview with Abdullah, February 26, 2003, Washington, D.C. (GW).
11. Interviews with multiple U.S. officials. Details about the aborted attacks are in National Commission staff statement no. 7, p. 4.
12. Interview with Zekrullah Jahed Khan, May 28, 2002, Kabul, Afghanistan (GW). “Bin Laden’s too hard” is from an interview with a U.S. official.
13. Quotations from interviews with U.S. officials.
14. Interviews with multiple U.S. officials and multiple intelligence aides to Massoud.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Interview with Hugh Shelton, October 31, 2002, Reston, Virginia. (SC). David Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace, p. 414.
18. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, pp. 294-96. “We don’t have Pakistan … likely to fail” is from Berger’s testimony to the Joint Inquiry Committee, September 19, 2002.
19. “All we had … sheikh is coming” is from an interview with a Pentagon official. Cohen quotations from National Commission, staff statement no. 6, p. 5, and his written testimony, March 23, 2004.
20. That planners saw political and tactical problems operating near Pakistan is from the interview with Shelton, October 31, 2002.
21. “A standard military position … cannon fodder” is from Benjamin and Simon, Age of Sacred Terror, pp. 294-96. “It would scare the shit,” ibid., p. 318. And interviews with U.S. officials.
22. Interview with Shelton, October 31, 2002.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid., and interviews with Clinton administration officials.
25. Interviews with U.S. officials.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid. The quotation is from an interview with a Clinton administration official.
28. Ibid. The quotation is from the interview with Shelton, October 31, 2002.
29. Interview with Shelton, October 31, 2002. Also based on interviews with multiple Clinton administration officials. “We had a force … predicate to do it” is from an interview with Thomas Pickering, April 24, 2002, Rosslyn, Virginia (SC). That Berger noted sixty-seven Americans dead from terrorism during Clinton’s presidency and that he saw no political context or support for an American war in Afghanistan is from his testimony to the Joint Inquiry Committee, September 19, 2002. Clarke memo and March meeting from National Commission staff statement no. 8, pp. 5-6.
30. Shelton quotation is from interview, October 31, 2002.
31. Interviews with U.S. officials.
32. The account of this meeting is from multiple American and Afghan officials present or familiar with reports of the discussion.
33. Interview with Abdullah, February 26, 2003.
CHAPTER 28: “IS THERE ANY POLICY?”
1. Hired Lanny Davis: The Washington Post, February 6, 2000. Mahmoud’s role is from interviews with Pakistani and U.S. officials. See also Michael Griffin, Reaping the Whirlwind, pp. 234-35.
2. Interviews with U.S. officials. Mahmoud’s biography is also from Pakistani journalist Kamran Khan and Pakistani officials who worked with him.
3. Interviews with U.S. and Pakistani officials.
4. The information about the renditions of Arab Islamists is from interviews with U.S. and Pakistani officials. Officials from both sides recall that one of the suspects was a Jordanian with an American passport who eventually had to be released for lack of charges. “Actively considering” is from The Washington Post, February 4, 2000.
5. That Clinton overruled the Secret Service is from Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, pp. 317-18. Also, interview with Rick Inderfurth, May 7, 2002, Washington, D.C. (SC). The State Department itself documented the extraordinary expansion of al Qaeda-linked Kashmiri militants during Musharraf ‘s first year in office, in its report “Patterns of Global Terrorism 2000,” released in April 2001.
6. “First since Nixon” is from Dennis Kux, The United States and Pakistan, 1947-2000, p. 356.
7. “We’re going to show them … up in the air” is from the interview with Inderfurth, May 7, 2002.
8. Clinton on the plane is from Inderfurth, ibid. The scene on the tarmac is from Inderfurth, ibid.; and The Washington Post, March 26, 2000; and interviews with a Pakistani official who was present.
9. Interview with the Pakistani official quoted; all of the dialogue is from this official’s recollection.
10. “Uncertain loyalties” is from Benjamin and Simon, Age of Sacred Terror, pp. 317-18.
11. Berger’s recollections, ibid. Also, interview with a Pakistani official, and National Commission staff statement no. 5, pp. 13-14.
12. “Danger that Pakistan … no one can win” is from The Washington Post, March 26, 2000.
13. Interviews with U.S. officials.
14. Ibid. The quotation is from the author’s interview
with an official.
15. “Vacillated” is from the interview with Hugh Shelton, October 31, 2002, Rosslyn, Virginia (SC). “May hold the key” is from Anthony Zinni’s testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, February 29, 2000.
16. “People who do that … that position” is from Barton Gellman, The Washington Post, December 19, 2001, and from interviews with a U.S. and a Pakistani official. Reports about Taliban and bin Laden from National Commission, staff statement no. 5, p. 10.
17. Tim Judah, “The Taliban Papers,” Survival, pp. 69-80. Judah’s important article makes use of Pakistani foreign ministry papers discovered in that country’s looted embassy in Kabul immediately after the fall of the capital in the autumn of 2001.
18. Ibid. If the Pakistani documents are accurate-and Judah’s reporting leaves little doubt that they are-then some or all of the CIA, National Security Council, and State Department officials Mahmoud met in April must have delivered these threats to endorse Russian aerial attacks and U.S. missile strikes against Taliban targets.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid. Written testimony of Louis Freeh to the National Commission, April 13, 2004. Tenet and Musharraf from National Commission final report, p. 503.
21. Interview with a Pakistani official who talked with Mahmoud during the spring of 2000. U.S. officials said they did not start to pick up on Mahmoud’s reported religious conversion until the next year.
22. From an interview with the same Pakistani official.
23. Interviews with U.S. officials.
24. Ibid.
25. At least $3 million from accounts of the National Commercial Bank is from testimony of Vincent Cannistraro, House International Relations Committee, October 3, 2001; Boston Herald, October 14, 2001. That IIRO gave the Taliban $60 million is from its secretary-general, Adnan Basha, quoted in The Washington Post, September 29, 2001.