The Eleventh Day_ The History and Legacy of 9_11 - Anthony Summers [285]
44 told Pakistan/Ralston: Clinton, 799, Richard Clarke, 186–;
45 “Our target”: text of President Clinton’s address, CBS News, 8/20/98.
46 circumlocution: CR, 113–, 126–, 484n101, Executive Order 12333, United States Intelligence Activities, 12/4/81. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, who had succeeded Lake, would tell the 9/11 Commission that the intention of the missile strikes had been “to be bouncing bin Laden into the rubble.” Under Secretary for Political Affairs Thomas Pickering told commission staff the primary objective had been “to kill bin Laden and other senior leaders he was meeting with” (Berger: testimony of Sandy Berger, 3/34/04, CO; Pickering: MFR 04013744, 12/22/03, CF).
47 “intently focused”: Clinton, 798.
48 some fatalities: CR, 117, bin Ladens & Sasson, 240–, Bergen, Holy War Inc., 121–, int. of OBL for ABC News, 12/23/98. National Security Adviser Berger told the 9/11 Commission that “20–30 people in the camps” were killed. Interviewed in late 1998, bin Laden acknowledged that seven “brothers” were killed and “20-something Afghans.” In addition, according to Bruce Lawrence, editor of bin Laden’s public statements, seven Pakistanis also died (CR, 117, 482n46, int. of OBL by Rahimullah Yusufzai, 12/23/98, ABC News online, www.cryptome.org, ed. Lawrence, 83fn);
49 factory destroyed/intelligence shaky: Reeve, 202, Tenet, 117, CR, 118, Stephen Hayes, “The Connection,” 6/7/04, www.weeklystandard.com;
50 $750,000: Bamford, Pretext, 209;
51 $10,000: CR, 498n127;
52 propaganda victory/T-shirts: Hamel, 216, WP, 10/3/01;
53 “a highly”: bin Ladens & Sasson, 238.
54 “He had been”: MFR 03013620, 12/12/03, CR, 117. Bin Laden himself appeared to confirm as much a month later when he told Al Jazeera: “I was hundreds of kilometers away from there. As for the information that was supposed to have reached us, we found a sympathetic and generous people in Pakistan who exceeded all our expectations, and we received information from our beloved ones and helpers of jihad for the sake of God against the Americans.” Omar bin Laden’s recent account seems more worthy of credence than the story told by one of his father’s former bodyguards, Abu Jandal. According to Jandal, only a whimsical change of mind led bin Laden to change his plans and head for Kabul instead of the targeted camp (“I was hundreds”: ed. Lawrence, 7; whimsical: Nasser al-Bahri with Georges Malbrunot, Dans l’ombre de Ben Laden, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France: Michel Lafon, 2010, 149–, transcript, CNN Presents: In the Footsteps of bin Laden, 8/23/06).
55 “In 1996”: JI, Report, 217;
56 “conspiracy”: ibid., 129, Statement of Mary Jo White, 10/2/02, JI, Report;
57 200-page/$5 million: Indictment, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden et al., U.S. District Court for the Southern District of NY, 98 CR, 11/4/1998, WP, 11/5/98;
58 $25 million/double: Kenneth Katzman, “Terrorism: Near Eastern Groups and State Sponsors, 2002,” Congressional Research Service, Washington, D.C., 2/13/02, BBC News, 7/13/07 “Tier 0”: JI, Report, 40;
59 “We are”: CR, 357, JI, Report, 124.
60 “lethal force”: CR, 131–, 485n123, Shenon, 357. Clinton, Berger, and others told the 9/11 Commission that the president’s intent was clear—he wanted bin Laden dead. According to Tenet, however: “Almost all the ‘authorities’ [presidential authorizations] provided to us with regard to bin Laden were predicated on the planning of a capture operation.” Other senior officials agreed with this interpretation. Attorney General Janet Reno, Tenet wrote later, “made it clear … that she would view an attempt simply to kill bin Laden as illegal” (intent: CR, 133; Tenet: Tenet, 111–, “Director’s Statement on the Release of the 9/11 IG Report Executive Summary,” 8/21/07, www.cia.gov; Reno: CR, 132–).
61 operations against: Executive Summary, “Report on CIA Accountability with Respect to the 9/11 Attacks,” 6/05, CR, 132–, 142;
62 “Policy makers”: Tenet, 123.
63 “two chances”: Scheuer, Marching Toward Hell, 61. The Scheuer reference relates to the period between May 1998 and May 1999. A 9/11 Commission