My Share of the Task (72 page)

“Trusted sources” would vouch:
“Government's Evidentiary Proffer,” 36.

separate from the conventional one:
Wright,
Looming Tower
, 162. Bergen notes that “prosaic” concerns over security—as Middle Eastern governments may have been trying to infiltrate the volunteer ranks—prompted Al Qaeda's creation and that the organization was mostly a separate guesthouse to prevent its being compromised. Peter L. Bergen,
Holy War, Inc
. (Free Press, 2001), 62.

hardened Egyptians:
Wright
, Looming Tower
, 162.

met with the king:
US News & World Report
staff,
Triumph Without Victory: The Unreported History of the Persian Gulf War
(Random House, 1992), 82; Wright,
Looming Tower
, 178.

one hundred thousand Muslims ready:
Wright,
Looming Tower
, 178–79. Wright notes that bin Laden's offer “was a bizarre and grandiose replication of General Schwarzkopf's briefing.”

hundreds of pamphlets:
Central Intelligence Agency, “Usama Bin Ladin: Islamist Extremist Financier” (declassified 1996 memorandum), available on the George Washington University's National Security Archives website.

Yemen:
Abu Musab al Suri, quoted in Tawil,
Brothers in Arms
, 27. For a discussion of bin Laden's early focus on fighting communism, see Wright,
Looming Tower
, 150.

CHAPTER 5: PREPARATION

killed nineteen White Devils:
The crash resulted in 130 casualties, including 24 fatalities. Mary Ellen Condon-Rall,
Disaster on Green Ramp: The Army's Response
(Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1996), appendix.

parachute drop since World War II:
John R. Ballard,
Upholding Democracy: The United States Military Campaign in Haiti, 1994–1997
(Praeger, 1998), xiii.

“the most violent
regime”:
Bill Clinton, “In the Words of the President: The Reasons Why the U.S. May Invade Haiti,”
New York Times
,
September 16, 1994.

sixty-one war planes:
Douglas Jehl, “Haiti's Military Leaders Agree to Resign,”
New York Times
, September 19, 1994.

deaths occur on the field:
“Historically, approximately 90% of combat-related deaths occur prior to a casualty reaching a medical treatment facility (MTF).” Russ S. Kotwal et al., “Eliminating Preventable Death on the Battlefield,”
Archives of Surgery
(December 2011), 1350).

emergency medical technicians (EMTs):
“100% were trained as first responders, 10% as emergency medical technicians” (Sherry Wren, “Invited Critique,” in Kotwal et al., “Eliminating Preventable Death,” 1358).

more than eight thousand operations:
The time frame for these raids was October 1, 2001, to March 31, 2010. Kotwal et al., “Eliminating Preventable Death,” 1351.

complications from surgery:
“None of the 32 deaths resulted from the 3 major potentially survivable causes of death . . . defined in the literature. One casualty with potentially survivable extremity wounds died of post-surgical complications following evacuation” (ibid., 1352).

rate proved to be lower:
“Although the DOD does not have a process to systematically evaluate potentially survivable deaths, the regiment's 3% rate (1 in 32) is significantly lower than the 24% rate (232 in 982) previously reported for a subset of US fatalities from Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom” (ibid.).

wounded 4,500—mostly Kenyans
:
“U.S. Grand Jury Indictment Against Usama Bin Laden: Usama Bin-Laden, Muhammad Atef et al.,” (Counts 4 thru 238),
United States District Court, Southern District of New York
,
November 6, 1998, 37.

blinded:
Wright,
Looming Tower
, 308.

immediately suspected Osama bin Laden
:
Commission members and staff: Thomas H. Kean et al.,
The 9/11 Commission Report: The Final Report of the
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States,
July 22, 2004,
115–16.

lived in Sudan:
Wright,
Looming Tower
,
187.

fax machine from the Hindu Kush:
Notes to Osama bin Laden, “Declaration of Jihad Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Sanctuaries” in
Al Qaeda in Its Own Words
,
ed. Gilles Kepel and Jean-Pierre Milelli (Belknap Press, 2008),
274.

primarily a financier:
Central Intelligence Agency, “Usama Bin Ladin: Islamic Extremist Financier” (declassified 1996 memorandum), available on the George Washington University's National Security Archives website.

“these young men love death”:
The full text of this fatwa
can be found translated as Osama bin Laden, “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places,” in
Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts and Context from al-Banna to Bin Laden
, ed by Roxanne L. Euben and Muhammad Qasim Zaman, (Princeton University Press, 2009), 436–59.

volley of cruise missiles:
Commission members,
9/11 Commission Report
, 117.

including nerve gas
:
Wright,
Looming Tower
, 320.

produced pharmaceuticals:
Ibid.

deprived thousands of Sudanese of medicine:
Thomas Cushman and Simon Cottee, eds.,
Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left
(New York University Press, 2008), 223.

filed suit against the United States:
Ibid.

sixty-six Tomahawk cruise missiles:
Wright,
Looming Tower
, 320.

thought bin Laden would be:
Ibid.,
321.

on the road to Kabul:
Ibid., 321–22.

wounding twice that number:
The various casualty claims were reported in Ibid.,
323.

thirty militants were killed:
Commission members,
9/11 Commission Report
, 117.

twenty of its trainees
:
Weaver, “Real Bin Laden,” 37.

snow-tracked
Afghan mountains:
Ibid., 32.

“killed Pakistani intelligence officers”:
Ibid., 38.

less inclined to act that way:
Ibid., 37–38.

counts against the accused:
Figures related to the trial are from Benjamin Weiser, “4 Guilty in Terror Bombings of 2 U.S. Embassies in Africa; Jury to Weigh 2 Executions,”
New York Times
,
May 30, 2001.

former members of Al Qaeda:
Vernon Loeb and Christine Haughney, “Four Guilty in Embassy Bombings,”
Seattle Times
,
May 30, 2001.

send him to the American courts:
“Taliban Won't Hand Over Osama Bin Laden,” PBS: Online,
NewsHour
,
May 29, 2001.

CHAPTER 6: THE FIGHT BEGINS

That same morning:
The four hijacked flights that morning departed between 7:59
A.M
. and 8:20
A.M
.

“Tighten your clothes well”:
Muhammad ‘Ata al-Sayyid, “Final Instructions,” in
Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts and Context from al-Banna to Bin Laden
,
ed. by Roxanne L. Euben and Muhammad Qasim Zaman, (Princeton University Press, 2009), 436–59.

“When you board the airplane”:
Ibid.,
469.

four hundred miles per hour:
“Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7,” National Institute of Standards and Technology, November 2008, 15.

“for the sake of God”:
Muhammad ‘Ata, “Final Instructions,” 471.

fifty thousand reserve troops:
Jane Perlez, “After the Attacks: The Overview: U.S. Demands Arab Countries ‘Choose Sides,'”
New York Times
,
September 15, 2001.

“with the terrorists”:
George W. Bush, “Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People,” The George W. Bush White House website, September 20, 2001.

his ambassador to Pakistan:
This scene is recounted by the former ambassador, Abdul Salam Zaeef, in his memoir,
My Life with the Taliban
(Columbia University Press, 2010), 149.

“resort to anything beyond threats”:
Ibid.

Green Berets into northern Afghanistan:
Gary Bernsten,
Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda
(Crown, 2005),
78.

Mullah Omar's compound outside Kandahar:
Ibid, 82.

blows against the United States
:
The effectiveness of these attacks—infrequent but more and more spectacular—were inseparable from bin Laden's drumbeat of messaging that played on the increasingly unblinking media environment of the 1990s, including the growing private Arab TV stations. See Omar Saghi, “Introduction,” in
Al Qaeda in Its Own Words
, ed. Gilles Kepel and Jean-Pierre Milelli (Belknap Press, 2008), 24–28.

“wherever they find them”:
Osama bin Laden, “World Islamic Front Statement Urging Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders,” in
Al Qaeda in Its Own Words
,
55.

two army engineer officers
:
Steve Vogel,
The Pentagon: A History
(Random House, 2008), xxiii–xxv.

air-conditioned office space:
Ibid., 40. Other details about the concept for the Pentagon come from the same work, especially 137, 155.

17.5 miles of corridors:
Ibid.,
xi.

thirty-three thousand workers:
Ibid., 356.

first occupants in
April 1942:
Ibid., 213.

eighteen months from concept:
Ibid., 295.

after midnight on October 11:
“Vote Summary on the Joint Resolution (H.J. Res. 114),” U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes, 107th Cong., 2nd sess., October 11, 2002 available from the Library of Congress
THOMAS
website. President Bush signed it into law five days later, on October 16, as Public Law 107-243.

refused to contribute:
Robin Wright and Sonya Yee, “Mobilization of Iraqi Exiles Falls Short,”
Los Angeles Times
, March 29, 2003.

only seventy-four Iraqis:
Ibid.

ninety million dollars:
Ibid.

invited to attend:
David Lightman, “Top Secret,”
Hartford Courant
, April 2, 2003.

ask questions or request information:
“The most valuable part,” Senator Levin was quoted as saying in the
New York Times
, “is you can ask questions, you can press for information” (Carl Hulse and Eric Schmitt, “Pentagon Strokes Lawmakers Every Morning, and They Seem to Like It,”
New York Times
, March 29, 2003).

while Levin had not:
“Vote Summary on the Joint Resolution (H.J. Res. 114).”

mulling plans to attack:
The first briefing delivered to the chiefs of staff in “the Tank” (where they convene) occurred on Memorial Day, May 27, 2002. Micah Zenko writes an account of the briefing in
Between Threats and War
(Stanford University Press, 2010), 97.

lower limit of the
No Fly Zone:
Ibid.,
98.

in Europe and perhaps beyond:
When this facility was attacked and captured, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers suggested on CNN's
Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer
that the facility was the source of the ricin and terrorist operatives implicated in the 2002 Wood Green ricin plot to attack the London subway. “U.S. Troops Search for Chemical Biological Weapons,”
Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer
, CNN, March 31, 2003.

dispatching American bombers:
Zenko,
Between Threats and War,
98.

inserting a ground force:
Ibid.,
100.

attacking the Hussein
regime:
Ibid., 106

larger force package than envisioned:
Ibid., 100.

equipment Ansar al-Islam had
used:
Ibid., 108–109.

soldiers and their families:
Robert F. Worth, “Extension of Stay in Iraq Takes Toll on Morale of G.I.'s,”
New York Times
, July 19, 2003.

more Americans had died:
Sergio Vieira, “U.S. Deaths in Postwar Iraq Equal to Those in Conflict,” CNN, August
25, 2003.

CHAPTER 7: THROUGH THE HOURGLASS

drove through a field:
R. Jeffrey Smith, “After 10 Months in Iraq, U.S. Marks 500th Military Death,”
Washington Post
, January 18, 2004.