500 Days (21 page)

Gonzales opened his mouth to protest. Addington spoke first.

“What do you know about this, Al?” he asked. “What makes you an expert in these decisions?”

Gonzales pushed back, but Addington slapped down every argument he mustered. It took a few days, but finally Addington and Flanigan pulled the White House legal team out of the business of targeting missiles and bombs.

A three-quarter moon lit up a clear night, casting muted shadows over Kabul. The air was crisp, the city calm and quiet.

There was no warning, no sound of a plane overhead, no screams or combat fire. Tomahawk guided missiles sliced through the air, slamming into the city’s electrical grid. Kabul plunged into darkness as more missiles and then bombs rained down from the sky.

It was just before 9:30 on October 7. The air campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda had begun. This opening round of attacks involved an array of weaponry, including B-2 “Spirit” Stealth bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base, B-1B and B-52 bombers from Diego Garcia, Navy F-14 and F/A fighters, cruisers, destroyers, and SSGN submarines.

As the assault continued, the skies over Kabul lit up with white flashes and the city shuddered with thunderous explosions. The Taliban raced to their military positions, shooting antiaircraft guns toward bombers they could not see, their tracers streaking up into the night.

About an hour later, the bombing came to Kandahar. Hundreds of armed residents and Taliban soldiers ran into the street, firing weapons haphazardly in an attempt to hold off an imagined attack by ground troops. Deafening explosions ripped apart Kandahar Airport and its radar facilities, the Taliban military headquarters, and a guesthouse used by the Taliban leader, Mohammed Omar.

Despite the appearance of a massive assault, the first night was far from impressive. A modest thirty-one targets were struck; in addition to Kabul and Kandahar, the bombs hit Shindand, Herat, Mazar-e Sharif, and Sheberghan. None of the Taliban frontline positions were destroyed—or even targeted. It
dawned on members of the Northern Alliance that the Taliban fighters who most threatened them were, for the most part, unscathed.

This was the best the Americans could do?

•  •  •  

Inside the Treaty Room at the White House, technicians were adjusting lights and checking an audio feed as Bush sat nearby, reviewing his speech. At 1:00
P.M.
, the camera rolled, showing Bush at a desk.

“Good afternoon. On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against al-Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations in Afghanistan.”

The campaign was carefully targeted, Bush said, designed to disrupt terrorists’ use of that country as a base. He lauded Great Britain for aiding in the attack, and listed allies that were pledging forces for the operation.

“This military action is part of our campaign against terrorism,” he said. “Today we focus on Afghanistan. But the battle is broader.” Other countries that sponsor terrorists would be considered outlaws and murderers. Those nations, he suggested, risked being subjected to the full force and fury of the United States.

“The battle is now joined on many fronts,” Bush said. “We will not waver, we will not tire, we will not falter and we will not fail.”

•  •  •  

Thirty minutes later, an image of Osama bin Laden, clad in fatigues and sitting in a rocky outcrop, appeared on the Arab television network, Al Jazeera. The video had been prerecorded, although no one could say precisely when. The timing of its broadcast, coming so soon after the bombing began, hardly seemed a coincidence.

Bin Laden held a black microphone in his right hand and, as he spoke, wagged his index finger up and down. “God Almighty hit the United States at its most vulnerable spot, he destroyed one of its great buildings,” he said. “Here is the United States. It was filled with terror from north to south, from east to west, praise be to God.”

Less than two weeks had passed since bin Laden proclaimed the attacks were the work of Jews or enemies of the United States, that such an act was forbidden by the Koran, that al-Qaeda was not the enemy of America—comments that CIA analysts saw as the ravings of a madman. As expected, he was contradicting himself by proclaiming the horror as an act of God—on behalf of Muslims.

This was divine retribution, bin Laden said, an infliction of the same pain felt
by Islamic nations for decades. America was a nation of hypocrites, he intoned, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians with the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima while bemoaning as terrorism the deaths of far fewer people. All Muslims had to rise up in defense of their religion and join the fight to drive evil from Saudi Arabia.

Finally, bin Laden had a few words for the American people. If peace did not come to Palestine, if infidels did not leave the land of Mohammed, the threat would never end.

“I swear by Almighty God,” he said. “America will not live in peace.”

•  •  •  

The anthrax killer was back in Princeton, walking toward the mailbox.

Government health experts had already revealed news that someone had died from inhalation anthrax, but there was no real panic. The officials had told the public that there was nothing to fear, saying they did not believe this single case was the result of terrorism.

Despite the number of letters that the killer sent to the news media almost two weeks before, no one seemed to have found them. There had been no announcement of anthrax discovered at NBC or the
New York Post;
no letter had been located at the
Sun,
where Stevens worked. There was a distinct possibility that the attacks might slip by without anyone’s ever knowing they had occurred.

Soon, there would be no doubt that the country was again facing a terrorist threat. The killer arrived at the mailbox on Nassau Street carrying new letters. One was addressed to the Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle, and the other to Senator Patrick Leahy.

Both men played a role in the nation’s anthrax efforts. Months before, Daschle had sent a letter to the Pentagon expressing concern about the safety of anthrax vaccines administered to soldiers. Shortly afterward, the Defense Department announced it was curtailing the program; the vaccine was running out, threatening the life’s work of researchers like Dr. Bruce Ivins.

Daschle’s political influence on anthrax research was perhaps exceeded only by Leahy’s financial role. He was the former chairman of and now a senior Democrat on the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee. That Senate body oversaw funding for biosafety animal research facilities, such as the anthrax lab at Fort Detrick.

These two men were among the most important politicians in Washington when it came to the future of the anthrax vaccine program. And they had just been targeted for exposure to the deadly bacteria.

•  •  •  

Several sedans came to a stop at a mansion in the northwestern section of central London. A group of American intelligence and diplomatic officials climbed out and headed toward the front door, where a well-dressed servant awaited to escort them inside.

The home was owned by Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a member of the Saudi royal family who had served as ambassador to the United States since 1983. In those eighteen years, Bandar had become known internationally as an indispensable operator, a dominant diplomatic figure who served as a bridge between the Middle East and Washington.

On this day in mid-October, Bandar was hosting a secret summit between government officials with both the United States and Libya, two countries that had not had formal diplomatic ties for twenty-two years. Libya had been on the State Department’s annual list of state sponsors of terrorism since 1979, and the country’s leader, Muammar al-Gaddafi, had been quietly pushing for a détente with the West. Bandar brokered earlier meetings between the Americans and the Libyans—at his London home, at his British country house, and in Geneva—as part of the opening steps in a potential diplomatic thaw.

Until now, the discussions had focused on the role of Libyan officials in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland; there could be no progress, the Americans said, until Libya accepted its responsibility and agreed to a settlement with victims’ families.

The meeting today would be quite different. The entourage of American officials walked through the first floor of Bandar’s home, passing an indoor swimming pool, before heading downstairs to a large, windowless room. There, they met with Moussa Koussa, who had worked as a deputy director of Libyan intelligence and had been linked to both the Lockerbie bombing and the downing of a French airliner a year later.

The first rounds of meetings were handled by William Burns, the assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, with the talks focusing on the Libyans’ admitting their role in the Pan Am 103 attacks and agreeing to surrender their weapons of mass destruction.

Ben Bonk, the deputy director of the Counterterrorist Center at the CIA, listened to the discussion without offering much input. He had attended several of these meeting with Koussa but arrived today with a new agenda.

After a break, Bonk and Koussa headed upstairs to a parlor filled with elegant sofas and matching chairs. Although his English was excellent, Koussa brought
along a translator; a CIA official accompanied Bonk from the Near East division. Everyone sat down around a coffee table. Bonk looked Koussa in the eyes.

“I don’t care about the past anymore,” he said. “Forget about it, this is the past, ended, done with. All I care about is what happens from now on.”

Bush had been clear about the new administration position, Bonk said—countries had to choose. They would be either with the United States, or against it. There was no longer a middle ground.

“You know these are serious problems. If you’re going to work with us, we want to work with you,” Bonk said.

A moment passed. “You go after them, you have to go after all of them,” Koussa said. “You can’t just go after bin Laden and expect this to go away. If you don’t get them all, they’re not going to stop.”

“That’s fine with us,” Bonk replied. “We’re going after everybody.”

Koussa’s voice dropped. “You know, of course, that your biggest problem is the Saudis and what they’re doing with the spread of their philosophy.”

Amazing.
They were meeting in the home of the Saudi ambassador. This was no place to talk about the role of Wahhabism—the austere form of Islam promoted by the royal family and practiced by bin Laden and other extremists—in the growth of al-Qaeda.

I’ll bet this room is bugged.
Bonk stayed silent, not disagreeing, not nodding. The conversation moved on.

After about half an hour, Bonk handed Koussa a small pile of documents containing information about the hijackers—nothing earth-shattering, but enough to signal that the administration was willing to cooperate and provide intelligence to Libya on terrorists. In return, Koussa brought out sheets of paper covered with a matrix of telephone numbers.

“We think al-Qaeda is contacting these phones,” Koussa said. “We’ve picked these up from our people in Afghanistan.”

The meeting ended, and Bonk walked away feeling pleased with the progress. Tentative steps, to be sure, but the American and Libyan intelligence agencies were starting to work together in confronting the al-Qaeda threat.

At his first opportunity, Bonk studied the papers that Koussa had provided him. The telephone numbers could be helpful; Bonk planned to turn them over to the NSA as soon as he returned home. As he scanned the numbers, one almost jumped off the page.

Area code 202.

Then he saw the prefix, 456. Bonk’s eyes widened in disbelief. Someone at
that prefix had been calling a phone number in Afghanistan linked by Libyan intelligence to al-Qaeda.

It was a number that Bonk knew well, a prefix used at only one building in Washington.

The White House.

•  •  •  

Shortly after 10:30 on the morning of October 8, a red Volkswagen Golf parked in front of an apartment building in Zenica, north of Sarajevo. Two Bosnian police officers stepped out and approached the ground-floor residences. A knock on the door, and Anela Kobilica answered.

“Is Belkacem Bensayah available?” one of the officers asked. “We need to speak with him.”

Kobilica hesitated. Bensayah, her husband, was an Algerian Arab who did not understand Bosnian well. Meeting with the police would be difficult for him.

“Why do you wish to speak with him?” she asked.

“We want to check on the status of his citizenship.”

This was bad news. Kobilica was aware that a number of Arab men had been expelled from Bosnia recently and feared this would now be her husband’s fate. She grew upset, but one of the officers told her not to worry.

“We’re just here to conduct a check,” he said. “Ask him to collect his identity papers and come with us.”

Kobilica went inside to fetch her husband. Minutes later, Bensayah was heading out to the street with the police, his immigration papers in hand.