America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History (71 page)

 50.
“Saudi Arabia Expands Aid to Kosovar Refugees,”
U.S. Newswire
(April 22, 1999).

 51.
Raymond Bonner, “NATO Is Wary of Proposals to Help Arm Kosovo Rebels,”
The New York Times
(April 4, 1999).

 52.
“Israel Says Iran Funding Kosovo Separatists,”
BBC Monitoring Newsfile
(April 8, 1999).

 53.
Robert G. Kaiser, “U.S. Message Lost Overseas,”
The Washington Post
(October 15, 2001).

 54.
Timothy Holman, “Foreign Fighters from the Western Balkans in Syria” (June 30, 2014), Combatting Terrorism Center,
ctc.usma.edu/posts/foreign-fighters-from-the-western-balkans-in-syria
, accessed February 27, 2015; Dzenana Halimoci and Teodorovic Milos, “Mercenaries, Extremists Become Major Balkans Export,”
Radio Free Europe Documents and Publications
(August 15, 2014); Gordon N. Bardos, “Jihad in the Balkans,”
World Affairs
(September/October 2014).

11. Phony War

 1.
“Bin Laden Declares Jihad on Americans” (September 2, 1996),
FBIS Report,
fas.org/irp/world/para/ubl-fbis.pdf
, accessed March 2, 2015.

 2.
“Text of Fatwa Urging Jihad Against Americans” (February 23, 1998),
FBIS Report,
fas.org/irp/world/para/ubl-fbis.pdf
, accessed March 2, 2015.

 3.
The 9/11 Commission Report
(Washington, D.C., 2004), 59–60.

 4.
William J. Clinton, “The President’s Radio Address” (February 27, 1993).

 5.
Paul West, “Clinton Outlines $7.4 Billion National Service Plan,” Baltimore
Sun
(March 2, 1993).

 6.
Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon,
The Age of Sacred Terror
(New York, 2002), 13–14.

 7.
The 9/11 Commission Report,
60.

 8.
David Kirkpatrick, “Saudi Arabia Said to Arrest Suspect in 1996 Khobar Towers Bombing,”
The New York Times
(August 26, 2015).

 9.
“Report to the President and Congress on the Protection of U.S. Forces Deployed Abroad” (August 30, 1996),
au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/khobar/downing/toc.htm
, accessed March 6, 2015. The document is more commonly known as the Downing Report.

 10.
Bergen,
Holy War
, 176.

 11.
“Perry: U.S. Eyed Iran Attack After Bombing,” United Press International (June 7, 2007).

 12.
The frequency (or infrequency) with which
The New York Times
has mentioned “Bin Laden” and “Al Qaeda” over time provides one measure of public visibility.

Through Proquest,
The New York Times
has two databases for its articles in this period, and they do not produce identical results for any given search term. In each cell, the first number is the number of articles containing the term “Bin Laden” or “Al Qaeda” anywhere in the article, from the
New York Times
“Current File.” The second number is the number of articles containing the same item from
The New York Times
“Late Edition/East Coast Edition.” I am grateful to Derrin Culp for providing this data.

 13.
William J. Clinton, “The President’s Radio Address” (August 8, 1998).

 14.
Richard A. Clarke,
Against All Enemies
(New York, 2004), 184.

 15.
Micah Zenko, “Between Threats and War: U.S. Discrete Military Operations in the Post–Cold War World” (unpublished PhD dissertation, Brandeis University, 2009), 117.

 16.
Zenko, “Between Threats and War,” 127.

 17.
“Remarks at Press Stake-out on Capitol Hill” (August 21, 1998).

 18.
Tom Clancy with General Tony Zinni,
Battle Ready
(New York, 2004), 341.

 19.
Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, “Staff Statement No. 6—the Military” (March 26, 2004).

 20.
Zenko, “Between Threats and War,” 124.

 21.
James Risen and David Johnston, “Experts Find No Arms Chemicals at Bombed Sudan Plant,”
The New York Times
(February 9, 1999). The investigation was led by Professor Thomas D. Tullius, chairman of the Chemistry Department at Boston University.

 22.
“Remarks at Press Stake-out on Capitol Hill” (August 21, 1998).

 23.
Clarke,
Against All Enemies
, 198.

 24.
Clarke,
Against All Enemies
, 189.

 25.
Jim Hoagland, “One Raid in a Long War,”
The Washington Post
(August 23, 1998).

 26.
Max Boot, “Victorian Soldiers Have Some Lessons for U.S.,”
The Wall Street Journal
(August 25, 1998).

 27.
“Get Personal,”
The New Republic
(September 14 & 21, 1999).

 28.
Edward G. Shirley, “The Etiquette of Killing bin Laden,”
The Wall Street Journal
(August 27, 1998). “Edward G. Shirley” was a pseudonym for Gerecht.

 29.
There were exceptions, of course, but they carried no weight. An editorial in
The Christian Science Monitor
questioned whether waging war on terrorism was really such a good idea. The
Monitor
suggested that the problem might not be bin Laden but “the alienation and anger rife in parts of Northern Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.” To base U.S. policy on force was to trigger a “cycle of tit-for-tat violence.” The
Monitor
anticipated “pressures to suspend civil liberties in order to avert potential terrorist threats on US soil.” “ ‘War’ Against Terrorism,”
The Christian Science Monitor
(August 24, 1998).

 30.
Clark,
Against All Enemies,
201.

 31.
9/11 Commission, “Staff Statement No. 6.”

 32.
Hugh Shelton,
Without Hesitation
(New York, 2010), 342–43; Benjamin and Simon,
Age of Sacred Terror,
280–82, 320.

 33.
During Operation Desert Storm, two other navy ships, USS
Princeton
and USS
Tripoli,
each struck a mine and sustained serious but not mortal damage.

 34.
Evan Thomas and Sharon Squassoni, “Desperate Hours,”
Newsweek
(March 26, 2001); Hal Pittman, “In the Presence of Heroes,”
All Hands
(May 2001).

 35.
“Command Investigation into the Actions of USS Cole (DDG 67) in Preparing for and Undertaking a Brief Stop for Fuel at Bandar at Tawahi (Aden Harbor), Aden, Yemen on or about 12 October 2000” (November 27, 2000).

 36.
Lippold disagreed with the investigators’ findings. He offers his own version of events in
Front Burner: Al Qaeda’s Attack on the USS
Cole (New York, 2012).

 37.
General John M. Shalikashvili, “Preface,”
National Military Strategy of the United States
(Washington, D.C., 1997).

 38.
Quoted in House Armed Services Committee, “The Investigation into the Attack on the USS Cole” (May 2001), 6. The report is at
bits.de//files/08/41/91/f084191/public/documents/US_Terrorist_Attacks/HASC-colereport0501.pdf
, accessed March 10, 2015.

 39.
“The Investigation into the Attack on the USS Cole,” 7.

 40.
“Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al Qida: Status and Prospects” ([January 2001]),
www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/clarke%20attachment.pdf
, accessed March 11, 2015.

12. Changing the Way They Live

 1.
“Secretary Rumsfeld Interview with
Time
Magazine” (December 14, 2001). Unless otherwise noted, comments by quotations U.S. defense officials, both military and civilian, can be found at the Department of Defense website, which is
defense.gov
. In this instance, Rumsfeld was recalling a conversation he had had with George W. Bush in January of that year.

 2.
Clarke,
Against All Enemies
, 227–38.

 3.
Shan Carter and Amanda Cox, “One 9/11 Tally: $3.3 Trillion,”
The New York Times
(September 8, 2011). The much larger figure reported by the
Times
includes war costs and post-9/11 improvements in domestic security.

 4.
George W. Bush, “Address Before a Joint Session of Congress on the United States Response to the Terrorist Attacks of September 11” (September 20, 2001).

 5.
“Remarks to Airline Employees in Chicago, Illinois” (September 27, 2001).

 6.
“Remarks at the National Defense University” (May 1, 2001).

 7.
“DoD News Briefing—Secretary Rumsfeld” (September 18, 2001).

 8.
This is from a note that Rumsfeld dictated to an aide at approximately 2:40
P.M.
on September 11, 2001. The note itself is available at “History Commons,”
historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a240blameiraq#a240blameiraq
, accessed March 14, 2015.

 9.
Donald Rumsfeld, “Memorandum to the President: Strategic Thoughts” (September 30, 2001).

 10.
Immediately after 9/11, the Bush administration did call to active duty some thirty-five thousand reservists to bolster homeland defenses and in particular to prevent another aerial attack. This was Operation Noble Eagle, which initially received considerable emphasis and publicity. In March 2002, however, the Pentagon scaled operations down, citing “the high cost of the flights, the drain on Air Force resources and the unlikelihood that the patrols could deter another air attack on the U.S. homeland.” In effect, ongoing and anticipated operations abroad took priority. Esther Schrader, “Pentagon Will Reduce Air Patrols over Cities,”
Los Angeles Times
(March 19, 2002).