The Looming Tower - Lawrence Wright [231]
90 percent of the expenses: Dawood al-Shirian, “What Is Saudi Arabia Going to Do?” Al-Hayat, May 19, 2003.
150 “They have attacked our brothers”: Osama bin Laden speech in the bin Laden family mosque in Jeddah, April 1990, filmed by Essam Deraz.
151 “when America permitted”: bin Laden videotape, al-Jazeera, October 29, 2004.
“Thank you”: www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/.
152 America and Saudi Arabia: cf. Lippman, Inside the Mirage.
more than thirty thousand: Peterson, Saudi Arabia and the Illusion of Security, 46.
more than 200,000 Americans: Prince Turki al-Faisal, address to Seton Hall University, October 14, 2003.
United States was the tenth: Aburish, The Rise, Corruption, and Coming Fall, 169.
153 In 1989 bin Laden approached: interviews with Saeed Badeeb and Ahmed Badeeb.
Americans had a secret agreement: interview with Jamal Khashoggi.
suitcases full of cash: Randal, Osama, 100.
154 a number of trips to the new republic: interviews with Ahmed Badeeb and Saeed Badeeb.
154 assassinate socialist leaders: The Yemeni government maintained that “Yemeni Afghan groups executed several socialist figures and mounted 158 operations…between 1990 and 2004 on the strength of fatwas issued by Osama bin Laden.” Quoted in Anonymous, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes, 112. The Yemenis apparently did not realize that a new organization, al-Qaeda, was responsible for these operations.
“I was working”: interview with Ahmed Badeeb.
155 he immediately doubled the figure: interview with Nawaf E. Obaid.
a little over 5 million: Professor William B. Quandt, personal communication.
moved its foreign headquarters: Simons, Saudi Arabia, 214.
“I said many times”: Osama bin Laden, interviewed by Peter L. Bergen and Peter Arnett, CNN, May 10, 1997.
“burn half of Israel”: Amatzia Baram, “The Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait,” in The Saddam Hussein Reader, edited by Turi Munthe, 259.
non-aggression pact: According to Leslie and Alexander Cockburn, “Royal Mess,” New Yorker, November 28, 1994, the Saudis had also been funding Iraqi research into nuclear weapons. On the other hand, Richard A. Clarke contends, in an interview, that scenario is “quite unbelievable,” since a nuclear-armed Saddam was Saudi Arabia’s greatest fear.
no intention of invading Kuwait: www.kingfahdbinabdulaziz.com/main/1300.htm.
raid bin Laden’s farm: “Biography of Usamah bin-Ladin, written by brother Mujahid with minor modifications,” Islamic Observation Center, trans. FBIS, April 22, 2000.
156 One battalion: Woodward, The Commanders, 248.
bin Laden wrote a letter: Esposito, Unholy War, 12.
royal family itself was divided: Abir, Saudi Arabia, 174.
satellite images: Later press reports questioned the accuracy of these images, pointing out that commercial Russian satellite photos showed empty stretches of sand along the Saudi border. Scott Peterson, “In War, Some Facts Less Factual,” Christian Science Monitor, September 6, 2002. Richard A. Clarke, in an interview, says that the images General Schwarzkopf presented were not of the border area but of the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.
157 Cheney pledged: Clarke, Against All Enemies, 58.
“Come with all”: interview with Richard A. Clarke.
bin Laden spoke to Prince Sultan: Burke, Al-Qaeda, 124; also, Anonymous, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes, 114; Thomas E. Burnett, Sr., v. Al Baraka Investment and Development Corporation, et al., Final Third Amended Complaint.
“I am ready”: al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 8, March 26, 2005.
“no caves”: Douglas Jehl, “Holy War Lured Saudis as Rulers Looked Away,” New York Times, December 27, 2001.
proposals to the CIA: Prince Turki al-Faisal speech to Contemporary Arab Studies Department, Georgetown University, February 3, 2002.
in a theater: interviews with Ahmed Badeeb and Hassan Yassin.
158 fifty-eight thousand men: Abir, Saudi Arabia, 176.
“We pushed the Soviets”: interview with Ahmed Badeeb. The prince laughed: Arnaud de Borchgrave, “Osama’s Saudi moles,” Washington Times, August 1, 2003.
“radical changes”: Jamal Khashoggi, “Osama Offered to Form Army to