Anthony Summers - The Eleventh Day

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–;

35 bomber/OBL calls:Gaudin testimony, JI, Report, 129–, Wright, 276–.

36 “I did”/Odeh/“my leader”:Bergen, Holy War Inc. , 53, 113, Reeve, 201. The four men convicted for their roles in the Kenya and Tanzania bombings were Mohamed al-’Owhali, Mohamed Odeh—the two terrorists referred to in the text—Khalfan Mohamed, and bin Laden’s former secretary Wadih al-Hage. They were convicted in May 2001. A fifth man, Ahmed Ghailani, who had been charged on a total of 285 counts, was in 2010 acquitted of multiple murder and attempted murder charges. Though found guilty only of conspiracy to damage U.S. property, he was handed a life sentence (4 men: AP, 11/24/08; Ghailani: BBC, 1/25/2011).

37 “excited and happy”:bin Ladens & Sasson, 237;

38 “juice”:int. of Abdulrahman Khadr, Frontline: “ Son of al Qaeda,” www.pbs.org, “Al Qaeda Family: The Black Sheep,” 3/3/04, www.cbc.ca;

39 “Only God”/“real men”/“Our job”:int. of OBL for ABC News, 12/23/98 available at http://pws.prserv.net, Time , 1/11/99;

40 “the greatest”:int. of OBL for Al Jazeera, 12/98, http://wasarch.ucr.edu;

41 “respond”:MFR 04021459, 1/29/04;

42 opportunity/attack:Tenet, 115–, Miller & Stone, 210–, Clinton, 803–, Burke, 52;

43 Security tight:MFR 04021469, 12/19/03, Richard Clarke, 187;

44 told Pakistan/Ralston:Clinton, 799, Richard Clarke, 186–;

45 “Our target”:text of President Clinton’s address, CBS News, 8/20/98.

46 circumlocution:CR, 113–, 126–, 484n101, Executive Order 12333, United States Intelligence Activities, 12/4/81. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, who had succeeded Lake, would tell the 9/11 Commission that the intention of the missile strikes had been “to be bouncing bin Laden into the rubble.” Under Secretary for Political Affairs Thomas Pickering told commission staff the primary objective had been “to kill bin Laden and other senior leaders he was meeting with” (Berger: testimony of Sandy Berger, 3/34/04, CO; Pickering: MFR 04013744, 12/22/03, CF).

47 “intently focused”:Clinton, 798.

48 some fatalities:CR, 117, bin Ladens & Sasson, 240–, Bergen, Holy War Inc. , 121–, int. of OBL for ABC News, 12/23/98. National Security Adviser Berger told the 9/11 Commission that “20–30 people in the camps” were killed. Interviewed in late 1998, bin Laden acknowledged that seven “brothers” were killed and “20-something Afghans.” In addition, according to Bruce Lawrence, editor of bin Laden’s public statements, seven Pakistanis also died (CR, 117, 482n46, int. of OBL by Rahimullah Yusufzai, 12/23/98, ABC News online, www.cryptome.org, ed. Lawrence, 83fn);

49 factory destroyed/intelligence shaky:Reeve, 202, Tenet, 117, CR, 118, Stephen Hayes, “The Connection,” 6/7/04, www.weeklystandard.com;

50 $750,000:Bamford, Pretext , 209;

51 $10,000:CR, 498n127;

52 propaganda victory/T-shirts:Hamel, 216, WP , 10/3/01;

53 “a highly”:bin Ladens & Sasson, 238.

54 “He had been”:MFR 03013620, 12/12/03, CR, 117. Bin Laden himself appeared to confirm as much a month later when he told Al Jazeera: “I was hundreds of kilometers away from there. As for the information that was supposed to have reached us, we found a sympathetic and generous people in Pakistan who exceeded all our expectations, and we received information from our beloved ones and helpers of jihad for the sake of God against the Americans.” Omar bin Laden’s recent account seems more worthy of credence than the story told by one of his father’s former bodyguards, Abu Jandal. According to Jandal, only a whimsical change of mind led bin Laden to change his plans and head for Kabul instead of the targeted camp (“I was hundreds”: ed. Lawrence, 7; whimsical: Nasser al-Bahri with Georges Malbrunot, Dans l’ombre de Ben Laden , Neuilly-sur-Seine, France: Michel Lafon, 2010, 149–, transcript, CNN Presents: In the Footsteps of bin Laden , 8/23/06).

55 “In 1996”:JI, Report, 217;

56 “conspiracy”:ibid., 129, Statement of Mary Jo White, 10/2/02, JI, Report;

57 200-page/$5 million:Indictment, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden et al. , U.S. District Court for the Southern District of NY, 98 CR, 11/4/1998, WP , 11/5/98;

58 $25 million/double:Kenneth Katzman, “Terrorism: Near Eastern Groups and State Sponsors, 2002,” Congressional Research Service, Washington, D.C., 2/13/02, BBC News, 7/13/07 “Tier 0”:JI, Report, 40;

59 “We are”:CR, 357, JI, Report, 124.

60 “lethal force”:CR, 131–, 485n123, Shenon, 357. Clinton, Berger, and others told the 9/11 Commission that the president’s intent was clear—he wanted bin Laden dead. According to Tenet, however: “Almost all the ‘authorities’ [presidential authorizations] provided to us with regard to bin Laden were predicated on the planning of a capture operation.” Other senior officials agreed with this interpretation. Attorney General Janet Reno, Tenet wrote later, “made it clear … that she would view an attempt simply to kill bin Laden as illegal” (intent: CR, 133; Tenet: Tenet, 111–, “Director’s Statement on the Release of the 9/11 IG Report Executive Summary,” 8/21/07, www.cia.gov; Reno: CR, 132–).

61 operations against:Executive Summary, “Report on CIA Accountability with Respect to the 9/11 Attacks,” 6/05, CR, 132–, 142;

62 “Policy makers”:Tenet, 123.

63 “two chances”:Scheuer, Marching Toward Hell , 61. The Scheuer reference relates to the period between May 1998 and May 1999. A 9/11 Commission staff report noted only three occasions in that time frame on which strikes were considered. In December 1998, when there was intelligence indicating that bin Laden was at a location near Kandahar, an operation was called off—according to Tenet—because of doubt as to whether the information was good and the risk of killing people in a nearby mosque. In February 1999, bin Laden was firmly believed to be at a location in the desert in Helmand province. U.S. officials vacillated, however, because members of the government of the United Arab Emirates were hunting nearby. The opportunity passed. Another strike was considered in May 1999, but scrubbed because some doubted the reliability of the source. In July that year, President Clinton authorized the CIA to work with Pakistani and Uzbek operatives to capture bin Laden. It is not clear what stage that project reached (Staff Statement 6, CO, CR, 130–, 485n116–488n194, & see Scheuer, Marching Toward Hell , 284n8, 285n15).

64 “Tenet consistently”: WP , 4/29/07.

65 “cared little”/“moral cowardice”:Scheuer, Marching Toward Hell , 48, 75, 82, 84, 85, 290. Scheuer was closely informed on everything to do with the pursuit of bin Laden until some point in 1999. Sometime after the aborted strike in February 1999 (see previous note), however, he was removed as head of Alec Station—after a clash with an FBI manager assigned to the unit. Much of Scheuer’s 2008 book comes over as a furious venting of his feelings (Wright, 291–, Shenon, 188, Scheuer, Marching Toward Hell , refs.).