The Longest War
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127 Derwish was incinerated: James Risen, “Man believed slain in Yemen tied by U.S. to Buffalo cell,” New York Times, November 10, 2003. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/10/international
/middleeast/10YEME.html.
128 Portland Six: USA v. Jeffrey Leon Battle et al, United States District Court of Oregon, No. CR 02-399HA, Indictment. http://www.investigativeproject.
org/documents/case_docs/131.pdf. Dhiren Barot: USA vs Dhiren Barot, Southern District of New York 05 Crim. 311 sealed indictment. http://www.washingtonpost.com
/wp-srv/articles/hindi.pdf.
128 as an instructor: Esa Al Hindi, Army of Madinah in Kashmir (Birmingham: Maktabah al Ansar Birmingham, 1999), p. 152, Author collection.
128 bin Laden tasked Barot: New York Times, People: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, December 8, 2008. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/
timestopics/people/m/khalid_shaikh_mohammed
/index.html?inline=nyt-per.
128 targets included: United States of America v. Dhiren Barot, United States District Court, Southern District of New York, Sealed Indictment, Crim. No. 05CRIM 311.
128 discovered in an al-Qaeda safe house: Dickey, Securing the City, pp. 181–182.
129 “I’ll never forget”: Frances Townsend, interview by author, Washington, D.C., December 7, 2009.
129 “little more than a graduate school report”: Michael Sheehan, Crush the Cell (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2009), p. 216.
129 “the real deal”: Michael Sheehan, interview by author, Manhattan, New York, November 21, 2009.
129 from going public: “8 men charged with terror offenses,” CNN.com, August 17, 2004.
129 “flabbergasted”: Sheehan interview op. cit., and this account draws on Sheehan’s Crush the Cell pages 216–218.
130 “not get blindsided”: Townsend interview op. cit.
130 The alert was only lowered: During the Bush administration’s two terms the threat alert was raised and lowered 16 times on the following dates: March 12, 2002—Introduction of Homeland Security Advisory System At Yellow; September 10, 2002—Raised from Yellow to Orange; September 24, 2002—Lowered from Orange to Yellow; February 7, 2003—Raised from Yellow to Orange; February 27, 2003—Lowered from Orange to Yellow; March 17, 2003—Raised from Yellow to Orange; April 16, 2003—Lowered from Orange to Yellow; May 20, 2003—Raised from Yellow to Orange; May 30, 2003—Lowered from Orange to Yellow; December 21, 2003—Raised from Yellow to Orange; January 9, 2004—Lowered from Orange to Yellow; August 1, 2004—Raised from Yellow to Orange, specifically for the financial services sectors in New York City, Northern New Jersey, and Washington, D.C.; November 10, 2004—Lowered from Orange to Yellow, for the financial services sectors in New York City, Northern New Jersey, and Washington, D.C.; July 7, 2005—Raised from Yellow to Orange for mass transit; August 12, 2005—Lowered from Orange to Yellow for mass transit; August 10, 2006—Raised from Yellow to Red for flights originating in the United Kingdom bound for the United States; raised to Orange for all commercial aviation operating in or destined for the United States; August 13, 2006—Lowered from Red to Orange for flights originating in the United Kingdom bound for the United States; it remains today at Orange for all domestic and international flights. Department of Homeland Security, “Chronology of changes to the Homeland Security Advisory System,” accessed January 7, 2010. http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/
history/editorial_0844.shtm.
Chapter 9
131 “How are nations ruled”: Karl Kraus, quoted in Censored 2004: The Top 25 Censored Stories (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003), p. 238.
131 “You are entitled”: Patrick Moynihan, quoted in Timothy J. Penny, “Facts are Facts,” National Review, September 4, 2003. http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_comment/
comment-penny090403.asp.
132 By September 2003: Washington Post Poll, Saddam and the Sept. 11 attacks, September 3, 2003. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/
vault/stories/data082303.htm.
132 Even five years later: CBS News Poll, March 15–18, 2008. http://www.pollingreport.com/
iraq.htm.
132 “bulletproof” evidence: Eric Schmitt, “Rumsfeld Says U.S. Has ‘Bulletproof’ Evidence of Iraq’s Links to Al-Qaeda,” New York Times, September 28, 2002.
132 “protects terrorists”: George W. Bush, Cincinnati, OH, October 7, 2002. George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., January 29, 2003. State of the Union Address. http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/
01/28/sotu.transcript/.
133 “A year before”: Osama bin Laden, interview by Peter Arnett and author for CNN, aired May 10, 1997.
133 “can never be trusted”: Author interview with Khaled Batarfi, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, September 5, 2005.
133 volunteered the services: Peter Bergen, Holy War Inc. (New York: Free Press, 2001), pp. 77–78.
133 “The land of the Arab world”: Hamid Mir, interview by author, Islamabad, Pakistan, March 2005.
133 “I’m personally aware”: Author interview with Cofer Black, Washington, D.C., February 6, 2003.
134 “never deemed credible”: Author interview Roger Cressey, Arlington, Virginia, May 14, 2004. Cressey made the same kinds of comments in a follow up interview in Washington, D.C., November 24, 2009.
134 “solid reporting”: Walter Pincus and Dana Milbank, “Al-Qaeda-Hussein link is dismissed,” Washington Post, June 17, 2004. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/articles/
A47812-2004Jun16.html.
134 no Iraqi connection: Pincus and Milbank op. cit.; Harry A. Weber, “Judge: airlines can’t question FBI in 9/11 suits,” Associated Press, July 17, 2009. http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2009-07-17-9-11-
victims-sue-airlines_N.htm.
134 “no evidence”: George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., September 17, 2003. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/
releases/2003/09/20030917-7.html.
135 Mylroie laid out her case: Laurie Mylroie, Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein’s Unfinished War with America (Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 2001).
135 “generous and timely assistance”: ibid., pp. ix–x. Bizarrely, the Pentagon continued to employ Mylroie on an ad hoc basis up till 2007 despite the fact that all of her theories about Iraq had been comprehensively disproven years before. In 2005 Mylroie even prepared a history of al-Qaeda for the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment that ran some 300 pages. In it she recycled her long-discredited theories that Ramzi Yousef and his uncle Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the operational commander of 9/11, were “the trained agents of a terrorist state.” Mylroie’s post-9/11 work for the Pentagon is described in Justin Elliott, “Saddam-Qaeda conspiracy theorist surfaces writing Iraq reports for the Pentagon,” Talking Points Memo, January 29, 2009. http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com
/2009/01/saddam-qaeda_conspiracy_theorist_surfaces
_writing.php.
135 Bush cabinet’s reaction: Peter Bergen, “Armchair Provocateur,” Washington Monthly, December 2003; United States Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism (2000), Overview of state-sponsored terrorism. http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt
/2000/2441.htm.
136 an Iraqi intelligence agent: Mylroie 2003 op. cit. chapter 5, Appendix A and B, pp. 261–276.
136 had all found no evidence: Bergen 2003 op. cit. based on phone interviews with Mary Jo White, Kenneth Pollack, Vincent Cannistraro, and Neil Herman in 2003.
137 “enemy combatant”: Michael Isikoff, “Terror Watch: The Enemy Within,” Newsweek, April 21, 2004. http://www.newsweek.com/id/
53536?tid=relatedcl.
137 constantly being tasked: Interview by author, Washington, D.C., March 21, 2007.
137 “expert witness”: Laurie Mylroie, Testimony before the 9/11 Commission, July 9, 2003. Washington, D.C., http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/archive/hearing3/
9-11Commission_Hearing_
2003-07-09.htm#panel_two.
137 “I take satisfaction”: Mark Hosen
ball, Michael Isikoff, and Evan Thomas, “Cheney’s long path to war,” Newsweek, November 17, 2003. http://www.newsweek.com
/id/60579/page/4.
138 close ties to the Israeli right: Marc Perelman, “Cheney taps Syria hawk as adviser on Mideast,” The Forward, October 31, 2003. http://www.forward.com
/articles/6945/; Douglas Feith op. cit., p. 116; and Michael Maloof, interview by PBS Front-line, January 10, 2006. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside
/interviews/maloof.html.
138 a position paper: “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, 1996. http://www.iasps.org/strat1.htm
138 Saddam’s fortunes had revived: David Wurmser, Tyranny’s Ally: America’s Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein (Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 1999).
138 “We did not leave any dot unconnected”: Michael Maloof, interview by author, Washington, D.C., June 3, 2004.
138 150-page slide presentation: Author interview with Michael Maloof op. cit. and Maloof 2006 op. cit.
139 led a review of nineteen thousand: Interview by author with Michael Scheuer, Washington, D.C., December 23, 2009.
139 “you are not going to get it”: Interview by author with Daniel Coleman, Princeton, New Jersey December 19, 2009.
139 two new researchers: Bryan Burrough, Evgenia Peretz, and David Rose, “The Path to War: The Rush to Invade Iraq,” Vanity Fair, May 2004.
139 “mature, symbiotic relationship”: Tenet op. cit., p. 347.
139 “Feith-based analysis”: Tenet op. cit., pp. 346–347.
139 “Iraq and al-Qa’ida”: Kenneth R. Timmerman, Shadow Warriors: the Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender (New York: Crown Forum, 2007), p. 330.
140 “more akin to activity”: United States. Senate. Select Committee on Intelligence. Whether public statements regarding Iraq by U.S. government officials were substantiated by intelligence information. 110th Congress, 2nd session. June 2008. intelligence.senate.gov/080605/phase2a.pdf.
140 In January 2003: Tenet op. cit., p. 358.
140 “turned over every rock”: Author interview with John McLaughlin, Washington, D.C. December 7, 2009.
140 “smuggled conventional weapons”: Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Great Terror,” New Yorker, March 25, 2002.
140 was lying about his Kandahar trip: Jason Burke, “The missing link?” The Guardian, February 9, 2003. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/
2003/feb/09/alqaida.afghanistan.
141 “to hijack aircraft with knives”: David Rose, “An Inconvenient Iraqi,” Vanity Fair, January 2003; and David Rose, “Inside Saddam’s Deadly Aresnal,” Vanity Fair, May 2002.
141 how to hijack planes: “Iraqi defector offers talks of terrorist training camps,” Agence France Press, November 12, 2001.
141 New York Times similarly quoted: Patrick E. Tyler and John Tagliabue, “Czechs Confirm Iraqi Agent Met With Terror Ringleader,” New York Times, October 27, 2001.
141 “intelligence officer”: Jonathan Manthorpe, “Is Iraq, not bin Laden, real force behind terror?” Vancouver Sun, November 9, 2001.
141 “former Iraqi army officer”: Nicholas Rufford, “Mock attack on British bus,” Sunday Times (London), July 14, 2002.
141 White House “white paper”: Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War (New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2006), pp. 54–55.
141 “non-Iraqi Arabs”: Jonathan Schanzer, “Saddam’s ambassador to al-Qaeda,” Weekly Standard, March 1, 2004. http://www.weeklystandard.com/content/public/articles
/000/000/003/768rwsbj.asp?pg=2.
141 no “credible reports”: United States. Senate. Select Committee on Intelligence. “Postwar findings about Iraq’s WMD programs and links to terrorism and how they compare with prewar assessments,” September 8, 2006, p. 108.
141 “so much of this crap”: Author interview with Vincent Cannistraro, Washington, D.C., 2004.
141 tens of millions of dollars: This was first reported by Jonathan Landay and Tish Wells of Knight Ridder Newspapers. According to Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), p. 57, total US Government payments to the INC from 2001 to 2003 were $36 million.
142 more than a hundred stories: James Risen, “Data from Iraqi exiles under scrutiny,” New York Times, February 12, 2004. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?
res=9804E7D8133AF931A25751C0A9629C8B63.
142 before flying to the United States: 9/11 Commission Report op. cit., p. 228.
142 “still working to confirm or deny”: United States. Central Intelligence Agency. George J. Tenet, Testimony Before the Joint Inquiry into Terrorist Attacks Against the United States, Washington, D.C., June 18, 2002. https://www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-testimony
/2002/dci_testimony_06182002.html.
142 as many as four times: Woodward 2004 op. cit., p. 292.
142 “every kitchen sink”: Richard Armitage, PBS Frontline, “Bush’s War,” December 18, 2007. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/
frontline/bushswar/interviews/armitage.html
142 “we are increasingly skeptical”: Senate Intelligence Committee September 8, 2006, op. cit., p. 110.
143 “all sorts of garbage”: John McLaughlin, interview by author, Washington, D.C., December 7, 2009.
143 “unfortunately the substance didn’t hold up”: Tenet op. cit., p. 375.
144 told investigators: From the German indictment of Shadi Abdalla (alias Emad Abdelhadie), May 14, 2003. There are also excerpts from his interviews with German authorities that occurred between April 2002 (when he was arrested) and May 2003.
144 founded a training camp: Hutaifa Azzam, interview by author, Amman, Jordan, September 13, 2005.
144 “Someone could legitimately say”: Donald Rumsfeld, Defense Department Briefing, Arlington, VA, June 17, 2004.
144 blistering critique of Saddam: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, June 23, 2004. SITE Institute, Washington, D.C. www.siteintelgroup.org/terrorismlibrary/
communique/communique_1103219979.pdf.
144 “the best evidence”: Nic Robertson, “Bush stands by al-Qaeda, Saddam link,” CNN.com, June 15, 2004, http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/
06/15/bush.alqaeda/index.html.
144 “the regime did not a have a relationship”: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, September 8, 2006, op. cit., p. 92. I wrote a piece before the Iraq War explaining why such a relationship made no sense. I found it hard to get it published in an American newspaper, but it was published in The Guardian on January 30, 2003.
144 hardly meant that he had control: In January 2004 Powell distanced himself from his U.N. presentation saying of al-Qaeda’s supposed ties to Iraq, “I have not seen smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the connection, but I think the possibility of such connections did exist and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did.”
145 “I will be more than happy”: Charles Faddis, interview by author, Washington, D.C. January 20, 2010.
145 “wholly unimpressive place”: C. J. Chivers, “Islamists in Iraq offer a tour of ‘poison factory’ cited by Powell,” New York Times, February 9, 2003. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?
res=9D04E3D6133BF93AA35751C0A9659C8B63.
145 “derail the plans”: Faddis interview.
145 Two days after: “Preparations for possible attacks gear up,” CNN.com, February 8, 2003; Tom Ridge, Department of Homeland Security, Press Release, February 7, 2003, http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/speeches/speech_0088.shtm; David Johnston, “Ridge says warning levels might be lowered in days,” New York Times, February 17, 2003. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/17/world/threats-
responses-intelligence-ridge-says-warning-
levels-might-be-lowered-days.html.
146 detailed advice: Philip Shenon, “Administration gives advice on how to prepare for a terrorist att
ack,” New York Times, February 10, 2003. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/11/
U.S./threats-responses-precautions-administration-
gives-ad vice-prepare-for-terrorist.html.
146 surge in sales of plastic: Jeanne Meserve, “Duct tape sales rise amid terror fears,” CNN.com, February 11, 2003. http://www.cnn.com/2003/U.S./02/11/
emergency. supplies/.
146 “provided training in poisons and gases”: United States. Senate. Senate Armed Services Committee, 108th Congress. Washington, D.C., February 12, 2003.
146 “advise al-Libi of his rights”: Jack Cloonan, interview by author, New York, December 17, 2009.
147 about Richard Reid: Cloonan interview op. cit.
147 Albert burst into: This episode was first described in Jane Mayer’s important book, The Dark Side, pp. 104–106, and also in Cloonan interview.
147 the CIA then rendered Libi: Tenet op. cit., pp. 353–354, p. 269.
147 “canisters containing nuclear materials into New York”: Tenet op. cit., p. 269.
147 “Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members”: George W. Bush, October 7, 2002, Cincinnati, OH. http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/
2005/adminstmts.CBW.110605.pdf
147 Libi recanted: Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2007), pp. 120–121 and 9/11 Commission Report op. cit., p. 470 fn. 76.
147 “fabricated” his tale: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, September 8, 2006, op. cit., p. 72.
147 “lacks specific details”: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, September 8, 2006, op. cit., p. 66.
148 “geographic base”: Vice President Dick Cheney, Meet the Press with Tim Russert, MSNBC, September 14, 2003. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3080244/.
148 multiple times: 9/11 Commission Report op. cit., pp. 228–229.
148 “We have never”: Dick Cheney, interview with Gloria Borger, CNBC News, June 17, 2004.
149 “Hijackers Timeline”: United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Hijackers Timeline.” February 1, 2007, pp. 132–133.
149 denied ever meeting him: James Risen, “Iraqi agent denies he met 9/11 hijacker in Prague before attacks on the U.S.,” New York Times, December 13, 2003. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/13/international