Inside the Revolution

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  74 Cited by Yossef Bodansky, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, p. xiii.

  75 Abdullah Azzam, Join The Caravan, a tract originally published on www.al-haqq.org in December 2001, retrieved from http://www.religioscope.com/info/doc/jihad/azzam_caravan_6_conclusion.htm, accessed August 16, 2008.

  76 Cited by Hamid Algar, Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini (1941-1980), pp. 387–388.

  77 Jihad magazine, Issue 1, December 28, 1984, published by Osama bin Laden and his mentor, Sheikh Azzam; cited by Peter Bergen, The Osama Bin Laden I Know, p. 33.

  78 Cited by Randall Hamud, Osama bin Laden: America’s Enemy in His Own Words, pp. 50–51.

  79 Ibid, p. 54.

  80 Cited by Steven Stalinsky, “Palestinian Authority Sermons 2000–2003,” MEMRI, Special Report - No. 24, December 26, 2003.

  81 Ibid.

  82 Sheik Yussef Al-Qaradhawi, interview on Al-Jazeera Television, “The Prophet Muhammad as a Jihad Model,” June 19, 2001, cited by MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 246, July 24, 2001.

  83 Cited by Baqer Moin, Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah, p. 186

  84 Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President, p. 437; see also Dr. Hamid Algar, translator, Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini (1941-1980), p. 23, citing the New York Times, January 2, 1978.

  85 Cited in “American Experience: Jimmy Carter,” transcript from the PBS documentary film, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/pt_2.html, accessed August 13, 2008.

  86 See Michael Ledeen, The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots’ Quest for Destruction, p. 4.

  87 See Algar, p. 16.

  88 Cited by Moin, p. 75.

  89 Moin, p. 174.

  90 Moin, p. 175.

  91 Algar, pp. 217–218.

  92 See Yossi Melman and Meir Javedanfar, The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the State of Iran, p. 79.

  93 Ibid, p. 79.

  94 Cited by Algar, p. 120.

  95 Cited by Algar, pp. 18, 182, 187.

  96 See full speech in Algar, pp. 181–188.

  97 See Kasra Naji, Ahmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader, p. 115.

  98 Cited by Moin, p. 122.

  99 Cited by Algar, pp. 228–230.

  100 Cited by Kenneth M. Pollack, The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America, p. 129.

  101 Cited by Algar, p. 231.

  102 See Amir Arjomand, The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran, p. 190.

  103 Admiral Stansfield Turner, Burn Before Reading: Presidents, CIA Directors and Secret Intelligence, p. 180.

  104 Cited by Carter, p. 438.

  105 Cited by Christopher Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American President from Washington to Bush, p. 440.

  106 Pollack, p. 131.

  107 Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, p. 428.

  108 Mark Bowden, Guests of the Ayatollah, p. 120.

  109 Pollack, p. 130.

  110 Pollack, p. 134.

  111 Cited in “Man of the Year: 1979,” Time magazine, January 7, 1980.

  112 See Moin, pp. 200–201.

  113 “Declaration upon Arrival at Tehran,” full text of Khomeini’s speech, cited by Algar, pp. 252–243.

  114 See “On This Day: February 1, 1979. Exiled Ayatollah Khomeini Returns to Iran,” BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/1/newsid_2521000/2521003.stm, accessed August 9, 2008.

  115 Cited in “Man of the Year: 1979,” Time magazine, January 7, 1980.

  116 Cited by William Daugherty, In The Shadow of the Ayatollah: A CIA Hostage in Iran, p. 4.

  117 “The First Day of God’s Government,” full text of Khomeini’s statement, cited by Algar, pp. 265–267.

  118 Cited by Bowden, p. 14.

  119 See Robert Gates, From the Shadows: The Ulimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War, pp. 129–130.

  120 See Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle, pp. 475–476.

  121 Cited by Gates, p. 130.

  122 See President Jimmy Carter, “Daily Diary,” November 3, 1979, document archived on Carter Presidential Library Web site, http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.org/documents/diary/1979/d110379t.pdf, accessed June 21, 2008.

  123 Cited by Bowden, p. 52.

  124 Initially, sixty-six U.S. Embassy staffers were taken hostage. Thirteen women and African-Americans were released in late November. One hostage was released in July 1980 for seriously declining health. The remaining fifty-two hostages spent a total of 444 days in captivity.

  125 Cited by Bowden, pp. 69–70. See also Massoumeh Ebtekar, Takeover in Tehran: The Inside Story of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture, p. 70.

  126 See Amir Taheri, “America Can’t Do a Thing,” New York Post, November 2, 2004.

  127 Turner, p. 180.

  128 Unless otherwise noted, most of this chapter relies on the author’s interview with General Jerry Boykin and on Boykin’s book, Never Surrender, written with the help of World magazine journalist Lynn Vincent.

  129 Bowden, Guests of the Ayatollah, p. 230.

  130 See Boykin, pp. 122–123.

  131 See Bowden, p. 468.

  132 It is important to note that the U.S. military in general and Delta Force in particular learned a great deal from the tragedy at Desert One and the mistakes that were made there. In time, they corrected those mistakes and have had tremendous successes in counterterrorism operations and in full-blown combat operations in the Middle East and around the world, including the liberation of Grenada from Soviet-backed Communists, the liberation of Panama from the drug-running dictatorship of Manuel Noriega, the liberation of Kuwait from the Iraqis, the liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror, and the liberation of Afghanistan from Taliban and al Qaeda control. I highly recommend Boykin’s book Never Surrender, as he was intimately involved in a number of those missions.

  133 See Hon. Royce C. Lamberth, United States District Judge, District of Columbia, “Memoradum Opinion” in the case of Plaintiffs v. The Islamic Republic of Iran, May 30, 2003, p. 16.

  134 Ibid, p. 16.

  135 Ibid, pp. 7–19.

  136 Ibid, pp. 18–19.

  137 Ibid, p. 10.

  138 Ibid, pp. 24–25.

  139 Ibid, p. 29.

  140 See “Iran Must Pay $2.6 Billion for Attack on U.S. Marines, Judge Rules,” CNN, September 7, 2007.

  141 Cited by Daniel Byman, “Should Hezbollah Be Next?” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2003, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20031101faessay82606/daniel-byman/should-hezbollah-be-next.html?mode=print, accessed August 24, 2008.

  142 Cited by BBC Monitoring: al-Manar TV, September 27, 2002; see Deborah Passner, “Hassan Nasrallah: In His Own Words,” research paper produced by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, July 26, 2006, http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=11&x_article=1158, accessed July 6, 2006.

  143 Cited by Nicholas Noe, editor, Voice of Hezbollah: The Statements of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, p. 32.

  144 Ibid, p. 50.

  145 Ibid, p. 54.

  146 Ibid, p. 54.

  147 Cited by Mohamad Shmaysani, “Al-Sayyed Nasrallah: Drill Shows Resistance Full Readiness,” al-Manar, August 11, 2007.

  148 Nasrallah has stated publicly that Hezbollah was founded upon the orders of the Ayatollah Khomeini. He has said on the record that in 1982, “the faithful were of the opinion that a revolutionary and Islamist current should be established to adequately confront the new challenge facing Lebanon. This current was to have a clear Islamist political vision, and operate through a consistent ideology based on the principles and political line of Imam Khomeini. . . . This is how Hezbollah came to be” (cited by Noe, p. 26). In an interview on Iranian television on April 16, 2007, Sheikh Naim Qassem, the number two leader of Hezbollah, admitted that “when Hezbollah commenced activities i
n 1982, it did so according to the opinion and religious ruling of Imam Khomeini.” He went on to explain that Hezbollah follows the religious directives and tactical military orders from the religious and political leadership in Iran, specifically the current ayatollah, Khamenei. The leaders of Hezbollah can, he explained, ask Khamenei for direction on what is acceptable and what is forbidden in carrying out jihadist operations against Israel, to make sure they do not sin or commit a crime (cited and translated from Arabic into English by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center on April 29, 2007, based on excerpts from the interview as cited by MEMRI and Israeli TV Channel 2. See www.terrorism-info.org.il).

  149 See Noe, pp. 95, 128.

  150 See “Analysis: Hezbollah a Force to be Reckoned With,” Agence France-Presse, July 18, 2006.

  151 See Patterns of Global Terrorism, “State Sponsors of Terrorism Overview,” Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State, April 30, 2008.

  152 Ibid.

  153 See “U.S. Official Says Hezbollah Aiding Iraqi Shiites,” Associated Press, November 28, 2006; Michael R. Gordon and Dexter Filkins, “Hezbollah Said to Help Shiite Army in Iraq,” New York Times, November 28, 2006; “Iraqis: Hezbollah Trained Shiite Militants,” Associated Press, July 2, 2008.

  154 Cited by Nizar Latif and Phil Sands, “Mehdi Fighters ‘Trained by Hizbollah in Lebanon,’” The (U.K.) Independent, August 20, 2007.

  155 See “Hezbollah’s Shi’ite Youth Movement, ‘The Imam al-Mahdi Scouts,’ Has Tens of Thousands of Members,” fact sheet produced by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies, September 11, 2006, http://www.intelligence.org.il/eng/eng_n/html/hezbollah_scouts_e.htm, accessed July 6, 2006.

  156 See MacNeil/Lehrer Report, PBS, August 14, 1979, cited by James A. Phillips, “The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan,” Backgrounder No. 108, The Heritage Foundation, January 9, 1980, http://www.heritage.org/Research/RussiaandEurasia/upload/86944_1.pdf, accessed August 16, 2008.

  157 Cited by Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, p. 423.

  158 Cited by Weiner, p. 423.

  159 See Robert Gates, From the Shadows: The Ulimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War, pp. 146–147.

  160 Ibid, p. 132.

  161 Ibid, pp. 132–133.

  162 Weiner, p. 424.

  163 Ibid.

  164 Text of President Carter’s State of the Union address, January 23, 1980, http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/documents/speeches/su80jec.phtml, accessed August 19, 2008.

  165 Weiner, p. 425.

  166 See Gates, p. 134.

  167 There is a dispute over just how many children Mohammed bin Laden really had. The 9/11 Commission Report, Section 2.3, says fifty-seven. But Lawrence Wright, author of The Looming Tower, an absolutely exceptional book that was indispensable in drafting this chapter, says fifty-four (see note on p. 444 of Wright’s book). CNN’s Peter Bergen, meanwhile, cites an interview with a childhood friend of bin Laden’s, confirming fifty-four. See Bergen’s The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda’s Leader, another excellent and vitally helpful book, p. 17.

  168 See Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower, p. 85.

  169 See Peter Bergen, The Osama Bin Laden I Know, p.71.

  170 See Gary M. Sevold, “The Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Radicalism,” in Know Thy Enemy: Profiles of Adversary Leaders and Their Strategic Cultures, ed. Barry R. Schneider and Jerrold M. Post (U.S. Air Force Counterproliferation Center, 2003), pp. 45–48.

  171 See Wright, p. 87.

  172 Intelligence analysts believe bin Laden is currently married to four wives, including one who is a descendant of the founder of Islam. He has also divorced one wife along the way. He is believed to be the father of at least fifteen children. Bin Laden once described his view of the benefits of polygamy, which was, of course, practiced by the founder of Islam and encouraged in the Qur’an. “One [wife] is okay, like walking,” bin Laden told a friend. “Two [wives] is like riding a bike: it’s fast but a little unstable. Three is a tricycle, stable but slow. And when we come to four, ah! This is the ideal. Now you can pass everyone!” (cited by Lawrence Wright in The Looming Tower, p. 94.)

  173 Ibid, p. 110.

  174 Cited by Yossef Bodansky, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, p. 20.

  175 Cited by Bergen, p. 27.

  176 Cited by Wright, p. 110.

  177 Ibid, p. 111.

  178 See Bodansky, p. 14.

  179 See Wright, p. 116.

  180 Ibid, pp. 116–117.

  181 Cited by Bodansky, p. 19.

  182 Cited by Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower, p. 151.

  183 See Wright, pp. 152–153, and Bodansky, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, p. 12.

  184 See Wright, p. 157.

  185 Ibid, p. 162.

  186 Bin Laden conveniently left out two major elements of the story of the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan: President Ronald Reagan and Rep. Charlie Wilson (D-Texas). Together, Reagan and Wilson persuaded Congress to increase funding to provide massive amounts of arms to the mujahadeen, including shoulder-launched ground-to-air missiles capable of destroying Soviet fighter jets and helicopters. Without U.S. funding and equipment, the mujahadeen never would have been able to defeat the Soviets. Some have questioned whether these funds ended up going directly to Osama bin Laden. The answer is no. Bin Laden used the mujahadeen victories to his advantage, but he himself was never a recipient of U.S. funding. After years of investigative reporting, CNN correspondent Peter Bergen concluded, “The Agency [CIA] directed around three billion dollars to the Afghan mujahadeen during the war against the Soviets, but there is no evidence that any of that money went to the Afghan Arabs, nor is there any evidence of CIA personnel meeting with bin Laden or anyone in his circle.” For more on covert CIA efforts to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan, see Robert Gates, From the Shadows, pp. 319–321; Peter Bergen, The Osama Bin Laden I Know, pp. 60–61. Some would also point to George Crile’s book, Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times, upon which the movie with Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and Philip Seymour Hoffman was based. While it is an extraordinary story told by key participants in these covert operations, readers and viewers should be warned that both the book and the film are filled with obscenities and debauchery. I cannot in good conscience, therefore, recommend them.

  187 See Bodansky, p. 28.

  188 John Miller, interview with ABC News, May 1998, cited on PBS Frontline Web site, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/interview.html, accessed June 21, 2008.

  189 By December 1991, 157 members of the Iranian parliament, as well as then Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, visited Khartoum in a show of the new Iranian-Sudanese alliance. Soon, Iranian weapons and advisors began flowing into Sudan, a trend that has continued right up through the regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

  190 See James Phillips, “Somalia and al-Qaeda: Implications for the War on Terrorism,” Backgrounder No. 1526, Heritage Foundation, April 5, 2002.

  191 Ibid.

  192 See Miller, interview with ABC News.

  193 I describe the Taliban in more detail in Part 2, during the chapters on Afghan president Hamid Karzai.

  194 This refers to the June 25, 1996, attack on the Khobar Towers housing complex near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, by members of the Saudi Hezbollah. Terrorists detonated a tanker truck filled with plastic explosives, all but destroying the nearest building. The attack killed 19 U.S. servicemen and one Saudi citizen and wounded 372 others.

  195 Excerpts from full text of bin Laden’s 1996 fatwa, multiple sources based on multiple translations; see http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html as an example.

  196 Excerpts from bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa.

  197 See The 9/11 Commission Report, Section 2.5.


  198 Ibid.

  199 Ibid.

  200 See “Al Qaeda’s Global Context,” Frontline Web site, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew/etc/cron2.html, accessed August 19, 2008. See also George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm, p. 125.

  201 See The 9/11 Commission Report, Section 6.3.

  202 These notes are available in an official document entitled “Substitution for the Testimony of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,” which contains detailed information gleaned from previously classified U.S. intelligence interrogations of the senior al Qaeda terrorist. The document was made available to federal prosecutors for legal proceedings against Zacarias Moussaoui, an al Qaeda sleeper agent arrested inside the United States. Moussaoui was recruited and trained by KSM to conduct “second wave” attacks in the aftermath of 9/11. To read the full document online, go to http://www.rcfp.org/moussaoui/pdf/DX-0941.pdf, accessed July 18, 2008.