The Longest War (85 page)

336
a private study
: Author discussions with Saudi officials, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, February 26, 2008.

337
“heroes”
: London bomber: text in full, BBC News, September 1, 2005.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4206800.stm
.

337
“Now the time has come”
: Cahal Milmo, “‘You will be destroyed’: bombers of Heathrow plot,”
The Independent
, September 9, 2008.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/
crime/you-will-be-destroyed-bombers-convicted-of-
heathrow-plot-923467.html
.

337
“Leave our lands”
: “Bomber’s message of hate,”
The Plymouth Herald (U.K.)
, November 21, 2008.
http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/
news/Bomber-s-sentence-adjourned/article-492697
-detail/article.html
.

337
“There is very limited”
: Author interview with U.S. counterterrorism official, Washington, D.C., 2006.

337
thousands of matchboxes
: interview Norine MacDonald, Kabul, Afghanistan, April 10, 2007, and Senlis Council, “The Return of the Taliban,” Spring/summer 2006.
http://www.icosgroup.net/documents/
Afghanistan_5_Years_Later.pdf
.

338
Ninety-eight percent
: According to the World Bank, in 2007 Afghanistan had 500,000 Internet users and a population of 26.2 million. World Bank: World Development Indicators Online.

338
Annapolis
: “New Usama bin Laden tape slams Palestinian negotiations, urges holy war for liberation,” Associated Press, March 20, 2008.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/
0,2933,340016.00.html
; recent Israeli invasion of Gaza: “Bin Laden ‘tape’ calls Israel offensive in Gaza a holocaust,”
The Guardian
, March 14, 2009.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
world/2009/mar/14/osama-bin
-laden-gaza-israel
.

338
“sent by the heroes,”
Osama bin Laden, “From usama to Obama,” January 24, 2010, translated by NEFA Foundation.

338
Musharraf said
: “Pakistan’s Musharraf: Bin Laden probably dead,” CNN, January 18, 2002.
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/
WORLD/asiapcf/south/01/18/gen.
musharraf.binladen/
.

338
painful kidney stones
: Laden, Laden, Sasson, op. cit., p. 172.

338
coordinated by Ali Mohamed
: United States of America v. Ali Mohamed, United States Southern District, New York. S(7) 98 Cr. 1023 (LBS), October 24, 2000.

339
only fifteen
: Lawrence Wright, The man behind bin Laden,”
New Yorker
, September 16, 2002.

339
In 1997
: Author observations, near Jalalabad, Afghanistan, March 1997.

339
Arthur Keller
: Author interview with Art Keller, Albuquerque, New Mexico, February 13, 2007; Admiral William J. Fallon: Author interview with William J. Fallon, Florence, Italy, May 23, 2008.

340
Pew poll
: “A Year After Iraq War,”
The Pew Global Attitudes Project
, March 16, 2004.
http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/206.pdf
.

340
His son Omar recalled
:
Growing Up Bin Laden
op. cit., p. 99.

340
“Bin Laden pushed
:
Growing Up Bin Laden
op. cit., p. 115, and Khaled al-Fauwaz, interview by author, London, April 1, 1997.

340
“He wanted his followers”
: Khalid al-Hammadi, “Bin Laden’s former bodyguard interviewed,”
Al-Quds al-Arabi
, March 20–April 4, 2005.

340
dinner consisted of
: Abdel Bari Atwan, interview by author, London, UK, June 2005.

340
to drink cold water
: Zaynab Khadr, interview by Terrence McKenna, Islamabad, Pakistan. “Al Qaeda Family,” CBC, “Maha Elsammah and Zaynab Khadr,” February 22, 2004.

341
“You should learn”
: Noman Benotman, interview by author, London, UK, August 30, 2005.

341
“hermit on the hilltop”
: Author interview with Cofer Black, Washington, D.C., February 6, 2003.

341
“It was November 2002”
: Ahmed Zaidan, interview by author, Islamabad, Pakistan, March 2005.

341
On the audiotape
: “Bin Laden’s message,” Al Jazeera, November 12, 2002, translated by BBC Monitoring,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_
east/2455845.stm
.

341
Rice called
: Joanna McGeary, “Why can’t we find bin Laden?”
Time
, November 17, 2002.
http://www.time.com/time/covers/
1101021125/story.html
.

342
varied the media outlets
: author interview with Ahmed Zaidan, Islamabad, Pakistan, July 2004; more than 100: IntelCenter breakout of
Al-Sahab
audio/video, 2002-September 1, 2009; around $50 billion: Reuters, “U.S. says 2008 intelligence budget was $47.5 billion,” October 28, 2008.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idus TRE49R8DO20081028
.

342
Pentagon officials were not surprised
: CNN correspondent Barbara Starr discussed the bin Laden tape on CNN’s
Wolf Blitzer Reports
, October 29, 2004.

342
“why did we not attack Sweden?”
: Osama bin Laden, “Message to the American people,” quoted in Gilles Kepel,
Al Qaeda in its Own Words
(Boston: Belknap Press, 2008), p. 71.

342
Kerry later said
: “Exclusive: Kerry says UBL tape cost him election,” FOX News, November 21, 2004.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/02933,139060,00.html
.

342
“profound impact”
: John Kerry interview by author, Washington, D.C., December 7, 2010.

342
It was clear
:
Agence France Press
, May 31, 2005;
Agence France Press
, March 15, 2003;
Sunday Times
(London), September 29, 2002; National Public Radio
Morning Edition
, April 2, 2002; curtains: Linda Frum, “Peter Bergen Talks to Linda Frum,”
Maclean’s
, January 30, 2006. Author observations of multiple videos by Zawahiri.

343
read a story about a goat
: Al Jazeera, “Full transcript of bin Laden’s speech,” October 29, 2004.
http://english.aljazeera.net/archive/
2004/11/200849163336457223.html
; BBC, “Text: Bin Laden Tape,” January 19, 2006.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east
/4628932.stm
; arcane debate: BBC, “Bin Laden Tape: Text,” February 12, 2003.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2751019.stm
; ban Muslim headscarves: “Bin Laden deputy slams scarf ban.” CNN.com, February 24, 2004.
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/
02/24/qaeda.headscarves/
. favorably mentioned the work of Chomsky: SITE Group translation, September 11, 2007.
http://counterterrorismblog.org/site-resources/
images/SITE-OBL-transcript.pdf
.

343
Chitral
: Author interview with U.S. military intelligence official, July 2006.

343
cash rewards
: PBS Online Newshour, “Facing justice,” June 18, 1997.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/
law/june97/cia_6-18.html
; “$25 million”: AP, Profile:
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, March 1, 2003,
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,79989,00.html
; played a role: Tenet op. cit., p. 253.

344
explained what methods had worked
: Author interview, Brad Garrett, Washington, D.C., 2004. Some of this section draws on the Afterword of
The Osama bin Laden I Know
(Bergen, 2006) and “The Long Hunt for Osama,”
Atlantic
, Peter Bergen, October 2004.

344
looking for “anomalies”
: Robert Grenier, Testimony before the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, April 9, 2008.
http://intelligence.house.gov/Media/
PDFS/Grenier040908b.pdf
.

344
thoroughbred horses
: Khaled Batarfi, interviews by author, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, September 5 and 9, 2005.

344
seventy kilometers a day
: Al Jazeera interview, “Osama bin Laden,” 1998 (undated).

344
five wives and some twenty kids
:
Growing Up Bin Laden
op. cit., Appendix A and Bergen 2006, Appendix C: “Osama bin Laden’s immediate family.”

344
Zawahiri have done
: Ismail Khan, “Zawahiri was not here,”
Dawn
, January 15, 2006.
http://www.dawn.com/2006/01/15/top3.htm
. “some of his own”: Anne Stenersen, “Al-Qaeda’s Allies: Explaining the Relationship between al-Qaeda and Various Factions of the Taliban after 2001,” New America Foundation, April 19, 2010.
http://counterterrorism.newamerica.
net/publications/policy/al_qaeda_s_allies
.

345
lack of HUMINT
: author interview, Pat Lang, Washington, D.C., 2004.

345
It’s possible
: Kevin Fedarko et al., “Escobar’s dead end,”
Time
, December 13, 1993.
http://www.time.com/time/printout/
0,8816,979803,00.html
. “has quit any kind of device”: Author interview with U.S. intelligence officials, June 6, 2003.

345
“We have hit couriers”
: Senior U.S. military official, interview by author, July 2006.

345
Zawahiri
: Carlotta Gall et al., “Airstrike by U.S. draws protests from Pakistanis,”
New York Times
, January 15, 2006; “more operational and is moving more”: author interview with U.S. military official, July 2006: “death of five militants”: Carlotta Gall and Douglas Jehl, “U.S. raid killed Qaeda leaders, officials say,”
New York Times
, January 19, 2006; “thumbing his nose”: Hassan Fattah, “Qaeda deputy taunts Bush for ‘failure’ in airstrike,”
New York Times
, January 31, 2006.

345
expand its attacks
: There were six drone strikes reported in Pakistan between January and June 2008, and 28 between July and December, according to the New America Foundation’s drones database,
www.newamerica.net/drones
; “45 minutes”: Jay Solomon, Siobhan Gorman, Matthew Rosenberg, “U.S. plans new drone attacks in Pakistan,”
Wall Street Journal
, March 26, 2010.
http://online.wsj.com/
article/SB123803414843244161.html
; author interview with former Bush administration official, February 2009, Washington, D.C.

346
fivefold increase
: Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, “Obama’s War,”
Washington Post
, February 15, 2009.

346
killed dozens
: Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, “Revenge of the Drones,” New America Foundation, October 19, 2009.
http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/
publications/policy/revenge_of_the_drones
; Amir Mir, “60 drone hits kill 14 al-Qaeda men, 687 civilians,”
The News
, April 10, 2009;
http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_
story_detail.asp?Id=21440
.

346
Other militants
: Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, “The Drone War,”
The New Republic
, June 3, 2009.

346
“We’ve got a few days”
: Dick Cheney, Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, January 9, 2009.
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/
news/releases/2009/01/20090111.html
; “brought to justice”: George W. Bush, Larry King Live, January 15, 2009,
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/
14/1kl.bush/index.html
.

346
“keep al-Qaeda guessing”
: Michael Hayden, Remarks at the Atlantic Council, Washington, D.C., November 13, 2008.

347
number of “spies”
: author interview with former Bush administration official, Washington, D.C., February, 2009.

347
dropped by half in 2008
: IntelCenter Breakout of as Sahab audio/video, 2002–26 February 2010. Email from Ben Venzke to author, February 26, 2010.

347
taken into Iranian custody
: Author interviews with U.S. intelligence officials, Washington, D.C., June 6, 2003.

348
“As long as”
: Ahmed Zaidan, interview by author, Islamabad, Pakistan, July 2004.

348
“close the 9/11 chapter”
: Roger Cressey interview; “death would signal”: Author interview with Robert Grenier; “other advantages”: John McLaughlin, interview by author, December 7, 2009, Washington, D.C.

348
seen as a divisive force
: Jamal Ismail, interview by author, July 29, 2004, Islamabad, Pakistan.

348
Americans being taken hostage
: author interview with U.S. official; and Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit, interview with author, Washington, D.C. December 23, 2009.

348
His former bodyguard
: Khalid al-Hammadi, “Bin Laden’s former ‘bodyguard’ interviewed,”
Al-Quds al-Arabi
, August 3, 2004 and March 20 to April 4, 2004.

348
“I have sworn”
:
The Guardian
Website has a useful chronology of statements by bin Laden and Zawahiri at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/
page/0,,839823,00.html
, where bin Laden’s February 20, 2006, statement can be found.

349
size twelve shoes
: Author interview with Julie Sirrs, Washington, D.C. 2003.

349
Saad bin Laden
: Mary Louise Kelly, “Bin Laden son reported killed in Pakistan,” NPR, July 22, 2009,
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/
story.php?storyId=106903109
.

349
“his blood”
: Al-Hammadi op. cit.

349
2008 survey of opinion
: Pew Global Attitudes Project, “Global public opinion in the Bush years,” December 18, 2008.
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.
php?ReportID=263
.

349
“mission is accomplished”
: author interview with Michael Scheuer, Washington, D.C., December 23, 2009.

Bibliography