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mentioned treat the document as having been written for the 9/11 hijackers. The translators of the version used by CBS News in 2001, however, stated in a note that the document did “not in any way sound like instructions to a hijacker or a terrorist.” In the context of its content and circumstances of discovery, however, the document can only be pertinent to 9/11 (Kanan Makiya & Hassan Mneimneh, “Manual for a Raid,” NY Review of Books, 1/17/02, Yosri Fouda & Nick Fielding, Masterminds of Terror, Edinburgh: Mainstream, 2003, 141–, Juan Cole, “Al Qaeda’s Doomsday Document and Psychological Manipulation,” 4/9/03, www.juancole.com, David Cook, Understanding Jihad, Berkeley: Univ. of Calif. Press, 2005, 195–, “Translated Text: Hijackers How-To,” 10/1/01, www.cbsnews.com).

55 manual: FBI press release, 9/28/01, www.fbi.gov;

56 re “q”/Qiblah: Fouda & Fielding, 147;

57 “To those who”: corr. Hans Kippenberg, 2010. Some, pointing to anomalies in the document, have raised the possibility that the hijackers’ manual might be a forgery. Professor Kippenberg, however, who has conducted the most in-depth analysis, cites a skein of persuasive evidence to the contrary (anomalies: e.g., Robert Fisk, The Great War for Civilization, London: Fourth Estate, 2005, 1039–;

58 evidence: Kippenberg, 4–).

59 “We believe”: Telegraph (U.K.), 9/13/01, int. of Jamal Ismael for Palladin InVision, 2006, supplied to author, WP, 12/9/01, Peter L. Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know, New York: Free Press, 2006, 312;

60 “I would like”/Taliban accepted: CNN, 9/17/01;

61 “As a Muslim”: Daily Ummat (Karachi), 9/28/01, www.justresponse.net;

62 “Whenever we kill”/“As concerns”: ed. Bruce Lawrence, Messages to the World, London: Verso, 2005, 106–.

63 On the eve: The night before the attacks, according to a CBS News report citing Pakistani intelligence sources, bin Laden entered a military hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, for kidney dialysis. This report appears to have been unfounded. There was an oft-repeated story that he required dialysis, but the best evidence is that he did not. Al Qaeda operatives’ accounts, moreover, place bin Laden at a camp in Afghanistan the following morning, September 11 (CBS news, 1/28/02, and see notes for Ch. 30, pp. 548–49);

64 call to mother/“In two days”/“I would never”: NYT, 10/2/01, MSNBC, 10/1/01, Mail on Sunday (U.K.), 12/23/01.

65 “I asked Osama”: Mir quoted in Georgie Anne Geyer, “Reporting on Terrorist Can Be Deadly,” http://sentinelsource.com, 6/28/09, but see Bergen, OBL I Know, 319, corr. Peter Bergen, 2010. The only other post-9/11 interview bin Laden gave was for television, with Taysir Alluni of Al Jazeera. Alluni was later arrested in his home country, Spain, on charges of supporting al Qaeda, and not released until 2005. Only in 2007, on an audiotape that a U.S. official judged authentic at the time would bin Laden clearly admit responsibility for 9/11. The voice believed to be his on the tape said, “The events of Manhattan were retaliation against the American-Israeli alliance’s aggression against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, and I am the only one responsible for it. The Afghan people and government knew nothing about it. America knows that” (Alluni: ed. Lawrence, 106–, 139–; 2007 tape: msnbc.com, 11/29/07).

CHAPTER 15

This is a transitional chapter, and the majority of episodes described in it will be more fully covered and sourced in later chapters. For that reason, there is reference in the sources below only to points that will not be covered elsewhere.

1 “Without conspiracy”/“Official answers”: Nation, 5/31/02, 7/12/02.

2 “No one has taken”: Richard Falkenrath, “The 9/11 Commission Report: a Review Essay,” International Security, Vol. 29, No. 3, Winter 04/05, Shenon, 392, 438n, & see CounterPunch, 2/23/08, WP, 7/13/08. The rather larger death toll figure of 2,973, used by the authors in the Prologue, was the official figure as of 2011.

3 “Why did”: int. of Patrick Leahy by Amy Goodman, www.democracynow.org, 9/29/06;

4 “As each day”: NYT, 10/26/03;

5 “officials from FAA”: Statement