The Eleventh Day

www.politifact.com;

47 “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;

48 “a great many”: NY Review of Books, 4/30/09;

49 “would not”: New Yorker, 1/21/08;

50 “provable”: Toronto Star, 11/20/10;

51 agents: NYT, 6/22/08, 4/23/09;

52 “intensely disputed”: NY Review of Books, 4/30/09;

53 Obama banned: ibid.;

54 “The use”: Mark Danner, “US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites,” NY Review of Books, 4/9/09.

55 “Any piece”: NY Review of Books, 4/30/09.

56 spewed information: KSM’s most recent known admissions, to the military tribunal in Guantanamo, 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).

57 “Detainee has”: New Yorker, 8/13/07;

58 “I gave”: Red Cross Report;

59 “some level”: Times-Dispatch (Richmond, VA), 7/6/08;

60 “We were not”: “Cheney’s Role Deepens,” 5/13/09, www.thedailybeast.com;

61 “Never, ever”: Richard Ben-Veniste, The Emperor’s New Clothes, NY: Thomas Dunne, 2009, 248;

62 Commission not told/turned down/blocked: MFR of int. George Tenet, 12/23/03, Kean & Hamilton, 119–;

63 “incomplete”: Shenon, 391;

64 “We never”: New Republic, 5/23/05;

65 “reliance”: Farmer, 362;

66 “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).

67 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;

68 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);

69 footnote: CR, 492n40;

70 evidence: “Summary of Evidence for Combatant Status Review Tribunal,” 2/8/07, http://projects.nytimes.com & see int. Udo Jacob—Motassadeq attorney;

71 Suskind: Suskind, One Percent, 102–, 133–, 156;

72 Bergen: Bergen, OBL I Know, 301–.

73 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.

74 “a close”: Fouda & Fielding, 113;

75 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