The Longest War (82 page)

293
late November 2008
: White House, Text of Strategic Framework Agreement and Security Agreement Between the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq, November 27, 2008,
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/
releases/2008/11/20081127-2.html
.

294
“I just never believed”
: Sky interview.

000
blood and treasure
: CNN, U.S. and coalition casualties,
http://www.cnn.com/SPE CIALS/2003/
iraq/forces/casualties/index.html
; “at least 100,000 Iraqis killed”:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/
content/article/2008/03/07/AR2008030702846.html
; “increased around the world sevenfold”: Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, “The Iraq Effect,”
Mother Jones
, March 1, 2007.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/
featurex/2007/03/iraq_effect_1.html
.

294
An alliance
: Kevin M. Woods, “Saddam and terrorism: emerging insights from captured Iraqi documents,” Institute for Defense Analyses, November 2007.

294
road to Jerusalem
: Fouad Ajami, “Iraq and the Arabs’ future,”
Foreign Affairs
, January/February 2003.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/
20030101faessay10218/fouadajami/
iraq-and-the-arabs-future.html
.

295
“finance its own reconstruction”
: Paul Wolfowitz, before the Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, March 27, 2003.

295
“never been closer to defeat”
: Adrian Croft, “Al-Qaeda in Iraq never closer to defeat,” Reuters, May 24, 2008; “killed hundreds”: For example, a series of bombings on August 19, 2009, killed 95 in Baghdad (“95 killed on Iraq’s deadliest day since U.S. handover,” CNN.com, August 19, 2009), and at least 127 were killed when a series of truck bombs exploded on December 8, 2009 (BBC, “Baghdad car bombs cause carnage,” December 8, 2009).

295
“They will really be”
: Odierno interview.

295
around 30 percent
: Bush Job approval ratings, CNN/Opinion Research, January 11, 2007.
http://www.pollingreport.com
/BushJob.htm
.

295
“There’s only one guy”
: Cohen interview.

296
crowed about
: Octavia Nasr, “Tape: bin Laden tells Sunnis to fight Shiites in Iraq,” CNN.com, July 1, 2006,
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/01/
binladen.message/index.html
.

297
“Striking the World Trade
:” Frapper l’immeuble du ‘World Trade Center,’ je considere cela comme criminel. From an interview with
Al Arabiya
in 2005, translated into French;
http://www.recherches-sur-leterrorisme.com/Document-
sterrorisme/abdallah-anas.html

297
“history’s unmarked grave”
: George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, September 20, 2001, Washington, D.C.
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/
releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html
.

297
“stupid and will be punished”
: Mohamed Tantawi, quoted in Douglas Jehl, “More extremists find basis for rebellion in Islam,”
New York Times
, September 22, 2001.

298
“a grave sin”
: Yusaf al-Qaradawi, quoted in Caryle Murphy, “Muslim leaders speak out,”
Washington Post
, October 13, 2001.

298
“greatest of sins”
: “The Mufti of Saudi Arabia on the recent terrorist attacks in the USA,”
The Muslim Creed
, September 2001 (9:9), p. 4.

298
“will not force the United States”
: Interview with Muhammad al-Shafi’I, “Abdallah Anas, the son-in-law of Abdallah Azzam, tells
Al-Sharq al-Awsat:
Al-Zarqawi’s
banner is illegitimate and the AL-Qa’ida trials have no credibility; the bombings in London are criminal deeds.” February 9, 2006. Open Source Center via World News Connection.

298
“My brother Osama”
: Quoted in Turki al-Saheil, “Reaction to Salman al-Awdah’s bin Laden letter,”
Al-Sharq al-Awsat
, September 18, 2007.
http://www.aawsat.com/english/
news.asp?section=1&id=10241
.

299
“message to his followers”
: Author interview with Salman al-wdah, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, February 25, 2008.

299
one of the reasons
: I was the producer of the CNN interview, which aired on May 10, 1997, and was conducted somewhere in eastern Afghanistan.

299
twenty-six Saudi clerics
: Toby Jones, “Saudi Arabia: reform or ruin?,”
Daily Star
, December 18, 2004.

299
withdrew his support
: Ellen Knickmeyer, “Egyptian extremist rewriting rationale for armed struggle,”
Washington Post
, July 15, 2007.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp-dyn/content/article/
2007/07/14/AR2007071401182_pf.html
. This section draws on Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, “The Unraveling,”
The New Republic
, June 11, 2008.

299
terrorism against civilians
: Abdul Hameed Bakier, “Imprisoned leader of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad challenges al-Qaeda,”
Terrorism Monitor
, Jamestown Foundation, December 10, 2007.

299
“extremely immoral”
: Middle East Media Research Institute, “Major Jihadi Cleric and Author of Al-Qaeda’s Shari’a Guide to Jihad: 9/11 Was a Sin; A Shari’a Court Should Be Set Up to Hold Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri Accountable; There Are Only Two Kinds of People in Al-Qaeda—The Ignorant and Those Who Seek Worldly Gain,” December 14, 2007, Dispatch No. 1785.

299
turned against al-Qaeda
: Paul Cruickshank and Nic Robertson, “New jihadi code threatens al-Qaeda,” CNN, November 10, 2009.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/
11/09/libya.jihadi.code/
.

299
mainstream Islamic theology
: “Whoever judges that someone is no longer a Muslim, it is they who have deviated from Islam and transgressed God’s will because they have judged another’s faith,” explains Hasan al Hudaybi, the leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood from 1949 to 1973.

300
dramatically in Iraq
: Mohammed Hafez’s book
Suicide Bombers in Iraq: The Strategy and Ideology of Martyrdom
(Washington, D.C.: USIP Press, 2007) describes this phenomenon.

300
claimed to be defending Muslims
: Tom Chivers, “Al-Qaeda doesn’t kill the innocent,”
Daily Telegraph
, April 3, 2008.

300
over the Internet
: Selected Questions and Answers from Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, April 17, 2008, translated by NEFA Foundation.

300
The Q&A did not go well
: The Open Meeting with Shayk Ayman al Zawahiri,
As Sahab
, 1429, pages 2, 4, and 13.

300
“not the intended targets”
: Osama bin Laden, “The way to frustrate the conspiracies,” December 29, 2007, translated by NEFA Foundation.
http://www1.nefafoundation.org/
miscellaneous/nefabinladen1207.pdf
.

301
only 10 percent of Saudis
: Terror Free Tomorrow, Saudi Arabia, December 2007.
http://www.terrorfreetomorrow.org/upimagestft
/TFT%20Saudi%20Arabia%20 Survey.pdf
.

301
2005 letter sent by Zawahiri
: Ayman al-Zawahiri, letter to Abu Musab al Zarqawi, July 9, 2005.
www.rjchq.org/media/pdf/zawahiriletter
.pdf
.

302
favorable view of bin Laden
: Pew Global Attitudes Project op. cit., p. 84.

302
quite negative attitude toward the United States
: Pew Global Attitudes Project op. cit., p. 1.

302
subsequently arrested
: “Saudi Arabia announces al-Qaeda arrests,” CNN.com, August 19, 2009,
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/08/19/
saudi.alqaeda.arrests/index.html
.

302
leaders in jail or dead
: Aside from a bombing in July 2009, there were no JI-related incidents in Indonesia since 2005, and many of the group’s leaders were arrested or executed. (
New York Times
, Times Topics, “Jemaah Islamiyah,” July 19, 2009). The leader of a JI splinter group, Noordin Top, was killed in September 2009 (Tom Allard, “Terror kingpin Noordin shot dead,”
The Age
, September 18, 2009.

302
popular legitimacy
: In 2009, only 13 percent of Indonesians surveyed said suicide bombings could be justified, down from 26 percent in 2002, and 24 percent had confidence in bin Laden to “do the right thing regarding world affairs,” down from 57 percent in the spring of 2003. Pew Global Attitudes Project, “Confidence in Obama lifts U.S. image around the world,” July 23, 2009.
http://pewglobal.org/reports
/pdf/264.pdf
.

302
“without achieving this goal”
: Zawahiri,
Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet
(2001).

303
“I’ve noticed”
: Anderson Cooper 360, February 3, 2010, Washington, D.C.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/
0902/03/acd.01.html
.

304
largest massacre
:
New York Times
, Times Topics, Irish Republican Army, March 10, 2009.
http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/
reference/timestopics/organizations/
i/irish_republican_army/index.html
.

304
“al-Qaeda and its allies”
: Barack Obama, “Remarks by the president on a new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan,” March 27, 2009, Washington, D.C.
http://www.whitehouse.
gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-a-new-
strategy-afghanistan-and-pakistan
.

304
On Christmas Day
: Anahad O’Connor and Eric Schmitt, “Terror attempt seen as man tries to ignore device on jet,”
New York Times
, December 26, 2009; “80 grams of PETN”, prominent Nigerian family: Carrie Johnson, “Explosive in Detroit terror case could have blown hole in airplane, sources say,”
Washington Post
, December 29, 2009; recently graduated: “Bomb suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on UK watch-list,” BBC, December 29, 2009; originally flown from: “Key dates surrounded the Christmas Day attack,”
Associated Press
, December 30, 2009,
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=
116&sid=1851004
; carried a syringe: Richard Esposito and Brian Ross, “Photos of the Northwest Airlines Flight 253 bomb,” ABC News, December 28, 2009.
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=9436297
.

304
acquired in Yemen
; “Yemen can carry out airstrikes against al-Qaeda,” CNN.com, December 30, 2009.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/
WORLD/meast/12/30/
U.S..yemen.strikes/index.html
.

304
On August 28
: Peter Bergen, “Similar explosive used in Saudi attack,” CNN.com, December 27, 2009.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/U.S./
12/27/bergen.terror.plot/index.html
.

305
traditionally a time of repentance
: Peter Bergen, “Saudi investigation: would-be assassin hid bomb in underwear,” CNN.com, September 30, 2009.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/09/30/
saudi.arabia.attack/index.html
.

305
hundred-gram device
: Bergen, September 2009, op. cit; “rare”: author interview with senior U.S. counterterrorism official, December 27, 2009.

305
“try it”
: Author interview with top Saudi counterterrorism official, October, 2009.

306
White House’s own review
: Summary of the White House Review of the December 25, 2009 Attempted Terrorist Attack, p. 2.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/
white-house-review-summary-regarding-12252009
-attempted-terrorist-attack
.

306
assassination attempt
: John Brennan, White House press conference, Washington, D.C., January 7, 2010.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/
briefing-homeland-security-secretary
-napolitano-assistant-president-counterterrorism
.

306
“dodged a bullet”
: Jake Tapper, Karen Travers, and Huma Khan, “Obama: system failed in a potentially disastrous way,” ABC News, January 5, 2010.
http://abcnews.go.com/
print?id=9484260
.

306
On January 21
: Scott Shane, Mark Mazzetti, Helene Cooper, “Obama reverses key Bush security policies,”
New York Times
, January 22, 2009;
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/U.S./
politics/23obama.html
; “reject as false”: Barack Obama, Washington, D.C., January 20, 2009.

306
six-month review
: Mark Mazzetti and William Glaberson, “Obama issues directive to shut down Guantánamo,”
New York Times
, January 21, 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/U.S./
politics/22gitmo.html
.

307
Sixty had already been cleared for release
: Richard Lister, “What next for Guantánamo inmates?” BBC News, January 23, 2009,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7846203.stm
; “flown to the island nation of Bermuda”: Erik Eckholm, “Out of Guantánamo, Uighurs bask in Bermuda,”
New York Times
, June 14, 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15
/world/americas/15uighur.html
.

307
some one hundred Yemenis
: Adam Levine, “U.S. may hand over Yemeni detainees at Gitmo to Saudis,” CNN.com, March 13, 2009,
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/03/13/
Guantánamo.saudis.yemen/index.html
.

307
two jailbreaks
: Ahmed Al-Haj, “U.S., Yemenis meet about Guantánamo detainees,” ABC News/Associated Press, July 3, 2008.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/
wireStory?id=5301764
.

307
released in November 2007
: Robert Worth, “Freed by the U.S., Saudi becomes al Qaeda chief,”
New York Times
, January 22, 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/world/middleeast
/23yemen.html
.