The Looming Tower (81 page)

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AKNOWLEDGMENTS AND NOTES ON SOURCES

L
IES AND DECEPTION
always pose a problem to a journalist who is trying to construct a truthful narrative, and in a project that largely relies on interviews with jihadis and intelligence operatives, the reader can suppose that there is a danger in placing too much trust in such sources. To complicate matters further, the early scholarship on the subject of al-Qaeda and the personalities that populate it was often shoddy and misleading. The Arabic press, which is essential to a chronicler of the lives of Zawahiri and bin Laden, is bridled by the autocratic governments in the region. Nor can one put too much faith in sworn testimony by witnesses who have already proved themselves to be crooks, liars, and double agents. How, then, does the writer choose which story to tell among so many conflicting and untrustworthy accounts?

Fortunately, some useful documents have surfaced in the five years since 9/11 that provide a reference for journalists who are looking for solid footing. Particularly helpful are “Tareek Osama” (the history of Osama), a collection of memos, letters, and notes that were taken from an al-Qaeda computer captured in Bosnia and entered into evidence in
United States v. Enaam Arnout;
a trove of e-mails and other correspondence that
Wall Street Journal
reporter Alan Cullison fortuitously acquired when he purchased what turned out to be a looted al-Qaeda computer in Kabul; and the important official papers of al-Qaeda, including its constitution and bylaws, many of which were gathered by the United States Department of Defense after the war in Afghanistan and form what is called the Harmony Documents. These items provide a bedrock of reliable information that can be useful in testing the trustworthiness of other sources.

Even these valuable materials can be misleading, however. For instance, the handwritten notes in “Tareek Osama” that record the critical meeting on August
11, 1988,
when the term al-Qaeda first surfaces, give us a peek at what appears to be the moment of creation. As such, it is an essential scene in my narrative. However, the English translation that was provided to the court is often confounding. “I see that we should think in the origin of the idea we came for from the beginning,” it says early on. “All this to start a new fruit from below zero.” A better translation of this passage would be: “We should focus on the idea that brought us here in the first place. All this to start a new project from scratch.” According to the document, the secretary who recorded these notes was bin Laden’s friend Abu Rida al-Suri (Mohammed Loay Baizid), but when I interviewed him in Khartoum, he denied that he was even in Afghanistan or Pakistan in 1988. I don’t know the truth of his assertion, but his name is on the document. Wa’el Julaidan, who refused to talk to me face-to-face, was in this meeting, and he agreed to answer my questions through an intermediary. He provided the surprising information that it was Abdullah Azzam who called it in the first place; he also gave me the names of the participants and described a vote that was taken at the end of the meeting on the formation of al-Qaeda. None of that is in the court documents. Medani al-Tayeb, who was al-Qaeda’s treasurer, told me through an intermediary that the organization had already been formed before the August 11 meeting—he had joined the previous May—so the vote appears to have formalized the creation of an organization that already existed underground. I believe that the reader can begin to appreciate the murky nature of the world in which al-Qaeda operates and the imperfect means I have sometimes employed in order to gain information.

Similarly, I have had to compromise on reporting things I believe to be true but cannot prove. One tantalizing example is the fact that Prince Turki disclosed to the Associated Press on October
17, 2003,
that as head of Saudi intelligence he had personally provided the names of two of the eventual September 11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khaled al-Mihdhar, to the CIA in late 1999 or early 2000. “What we told them was these people were on our watch list from previous activities of al-Qaeda, in both the embassy bombings and attempts to smuggle arms into the kingdom in
1997,
” Turki said at the time. This would explain the CIA’s sudden interest in those men around the date of the meeting in Malaysia of the hijackers and the USS
Cole
bombers. The CIA furiously rejected Turki’s comments, and the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, clarified his cousin’s statement by saying that there were “no documents” sent by Saudi Arabia regarding the hijackers to American intelligence. At the time, Turki stood by his statement, maintaining that he had passed the information, at least orally. I had confirmation of his claim from Nawaf Obaid, a security consultant for the Saudi government, who told me that the names of the future hijackers were given to the CIA’s chief of station in Riyadh. Now, however, Turki, who has replaced Bandar at the Saudi embassy in Washington, says that, after reviewing his notes, he was wrong; he himself never gave information about any hijackers to the Americans. Because of his outright denial, I removed this version of the story from the text. I cite it here to address the questions that might pose themselves to readers who know about this episode, and also to acknowledge the crosscurrents of politics and diplomacy that sometimes pull the real story, whatever it may be, frustratingly out of reach.

The reporting of this book has required constant checking of hundreds of sources against each other, and it is in this back-and-forth inquiry that the approximate truth—the most reliable facts—can be found. One might call this horizontal reporting, since it takes into account the views of as many participants as are willing to talk. Although the list is long, it is certainly not complete. There are key people in the American intelligence community, particularly in the CIA, who declined to meet with me; moreover, many of the best sources in al-Qaeda are being held by American authorities, not only secretly but also in U.S. prisons, where they are kept apart from any contact with the press, despite my pleas to their wardens and the judges in their cases. A full history of al-Qaeda cannot be told until they are allowed to talk.

There is another axis of reporting, a vertical one, that has more to do with understanding than with simple facts. Some of the people in this book I have interviewed in depth dozens of times. Invariably, the most profitable conversations are ones that come after a degree of trust has developed between the journalist and his source. This relationship is fraught with problems, since trust and friendship go hand in hand. Knowledge is seductive; the reporter wants to know, and the more he knows, the more interesting he becomes to the source. There are few forces in human nature more powerful than the desire to be understood; journalism couldn’t exist without it. But the intimacy that comes with sharing secrets and unburdening profound feelings invites a reciprocal degree of friendly protection that a reporter cannot always offer. By the conspicuous use of a tape recorder and extensive note-taking, I try to remind both of us that there is a third party in the room, the eventual reader.

I have strained to keep the use of anonymous sources to a minimum. As a reader, I often question the reliability of unsourced information, and so I’ve dragged as many of my informants into the light as possible. Some sources habitually start an interview by saying it is off the record, but they may later approve specific quotes or intelligence when asked. Where there remain items that are not tied to specific individuals or documents, they represent vital information that I have good reason to accept as true.