Newsweek Cover Story-part 2
It is often said that Islamic extremists wish to turn back history. They want to destroy the Western modernity that threatens to eclipse their fantasy of an 11th-century theocracy. But, like a judo expert who leverages his opponent's superior weight and mass against him, Islamic terrorists have found a diabolically clever way to flip the Great Satan on his back. Blending into American society for months and even years, quietly awaiting the signal to move, bin Laden's operatives have learned how to turn two of America's greatest strengths -- openness and technology -- into weapons against the American people. Armed with pocket knives, they transformed U.S. airliners into guided missiles, flying bombs packed with 60,000 gallons of explosive fuel. That feat, while awesome, could be just the beginning. Talking on cell phones and by encrypted e-mail, operatives in bin Laden's far-flung network can communicate from Afghanistan to Miami with little risk of immediate detection. It is chilling to think what they could accomplish if they get their hands on the acme of Western military science, the nuclear bomb. Without doubt, they are trying.
"The ability to take our expertise and turn it on us is exhilarating to them," says Sen. Ron Wyden, a member of the Senate intelligence committee. "They stay at it and stay at it to learn how to defeat our technological systems. It's like rattling doors through the neighborhood, looking for one to break in. That's what they're doing with our technology." The lock to America's rickety, overburdened air-control system was especially easy to pick. But America's water and electrical supplies aren't much better safeguarded. And teenage computer hackers have already demonstrated how to use the wide-open Internet to wreck cyberhavoc on American businesses and homes.
For all their professed devotion to medieval religiosity, the terrorists themselves appear to have comfortably blended into American culture. They do not appear to be poor, or desperate or down on their luck, like the stereotype of a young Arab man drawn to the false promise of entering Paradise through martyrdom. At least one of the 19 had a family, and all apparently lived comfortable middle-class lives, with enough money to rent cars, go to school and violate the Quran's ban on alcohol by visiting the occasional bar. A senior European intelligence official told Newsweek that some of the hijackers may have had Swiss bank accounts, which have now been frozen by Swiss authorities. Two of the alleged hijackers aboard Flight 93, Ahmed Alhaznawi and Ziad Jarrahi, drove a Ford Ranger and lived in a quiet neighborhood in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Fla. In front of the house was a wooden wind chime carrying the message this house is full of love. Newsweek has learned that the Pentagon has referred to the FBI reports that three of the hijackers may have received help from Uncle Sam -- as trainees at Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida; two others may have studied at Air Force facilities.
Osama bin Laden, their spiritual leader and financier, comes from a privileged background himself. One of more than 50 children of Yemeni billionaire parents who got rich off construction contracts in Saudi Arabia, Osama, for a time, made money on those most Western of beverages, Coke and Pepsi. During the early '90s, while he lived in Sudan, he owned part of a company that produced gum arabic, an essential ingredient of many soft drinks. Bin Laden may not have a vast personal fortune, at least not the $300 million ascribed to him, but he is able to secure funds from nefarious sources. According to intelligence sources, his agents are involved in drug running and he receives "blood money" payment from frightened Arab regimes that want to buy protection from his zealotry. According to U.S. intelligence sources, bin Laden is able to pay pensions to the families of suicide bombers.
Mohamed Atta was, according to investigators, the perfect soldier in bin Laden's army. He was a citizen of the world. Traveling on a passport from the United Arab Emirates, he lived in Germany for a time, studying at the Technical University in Hamburg. He frequented a nightspot named Sharky's Billiard Bar ("the Bar With Mega-Possibilities"), wore black jeans, and rented -- but failed to return -- a video of John Carpenter's "Vampire." At the same time, he requested and received a prayer room at the university for himself and about 20 other Muslim students. In the last two years, he began to wear Muslim dress.
Atta, 33, may have had a shadowy past. According to German authorities, he is suspected in the bombing of an Israeli bus in 1986, when he was only 18 or 19 years old. If true, he should have been denied immigration visas. Instead, he was able to move freely between Germany and the United States. He was clearly preparing for some sort of terrorist action for months. According to law-enforcement authorities, he may have begun casing Logan Airport in Boston more than six months ago. And, Newsweek has learned, he was seen last winter in Norfolk, Va., where, the FBI believes, he may have been surveying the giant U.S. Navy base as a target. Already, say investigators, there are important links between the hijackers who attacked American targets last week and the plotters who tried to sink the USS Cole in Yemen last October.
Atta had plenty of cash. He wrote a $10,000 check to take flight lessons at one of Florida's many flight schools. (Because of its year-round good weather and proximity to the beach, Florida attracts many international flight students, especially from the Middle East; background checks are said to be minimal.) Last December, he and another man paid $1,500 for six hours in a Boeing 727 simulator. "Looking back at it, it was a little strange that all they wanted to do was turns," Henry George, who runs SimCenter, Inc., at Opa-Locka Airport, told The Miami Herald. "Most people who come here want to do takeoffs and landings."
At the time, Atta aroused no suspicion. When he turned in his rent-a-car in Pompano Beach, Fla., on Sept. 9, before heading north on his suicide mission, he reminded the dealer, Brad Warrick, that the car needed to be serviced. "The only thing out of the ordinary," Warrick recalled, "was that he was nice enough to let me know the car needed an oil change." Atta and several friends were regulars at a Venice bar called the 44th Aero Squadron, decorated in the motif of a bomber-squadron bunker, complete with sandbags. "I never had any problems with them," said the owner, Ken Schortzmann. They didn't want to be bothered, but didn't drink heavily and flirt with the waitresses, like some of the other flight students. Atta seemed to be the leader. "He had a fanny pack with a big roll of cash in it," said Schortzmann.
Last week Atta and two of his buddies seem to have gone out for a farewell bender at a seafood bar called Shuckums. Atta drank five Stoli-and-fruit-juices, while one of the others drank rum and Coke. For once, Atta and his friends became agitated, shouting curse words in Arabic, reportedly including a particularly blasphemous one that roughly translates as "F--k God." There was a squabble when the waitress tried to collect the $48 bill (her shift was ending and she wanted her tip). One of the Arabs became indignant. "I work for American Airlines. I'm a pilot," he said. "What makes you think I'd have a problem paying the bill?"
Although investigators now suspect that Atta may been the leader of his cell, it is not clear if and when he was, in effect, "triggered." The pattern of bin Laden's terrorism is to insert operatives into a country where they are "sleepers," burrowed deep into the local culture, leading normal lives while awaiting orders. Intelligence sources believe that one or two control agents run by bin Laden's Qaeda may have slipped into the United States in the last couple of weeks to activate the airliner plot. The idea of using suicide pilots may have been germinating for a very long time. One of the other pilot-hijackers on Flight 11, Waleed Alshehri, attended flight school in Florida in 1997. Last week FBI Director Robert Mueller told a news conference, "The fact that they received flight training in the U.S. is news." But maybe it shouldn't have been. Only last September an Orlando, Fla., cabdriver named Ihab Ali was indicted for refusing to answer questions about his ties to the bin Laden organization, including his "pilot training in Oklahoma," according to court papers. Indeed, the records of the terrorism trial in New York for the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa offer a wealth of information about bin Laden's use of U.S.-trained pilots. One of them, Essam Al-Ridi, who had been trained at a Texas flight school, was a key government witness, testifying that bin Laden's associates used him to try to buy a private jet to transport Stinger ground-to-air missiles from Pakistan to Sudan.
It is not known exactly how many of bin Laden's operatives are still on the loose. One of the most intriguing suspects may be Amer Mohammed Kamfar, 41. Last winter or fall, he showed up in Florida and took flight lessons at FlightSafety Academy. He rented a house in Vero Beach, where he had a wife, who dressed in the traditional chador, and several children. Kamfar, who called himself "John," "shopped at Wal-Mart and ate a lot of pizza," according to a neighbor. Two weeks ago he packed up his family and left the area. Last week Florida cops put out an all-points bulletin, warning that Kamfar may be toting an AK-47.
Two of the suicide bombers may have just slipped out of the federal government's grasp. According to intelligence sources, on Aug. 21 the CIA passed along information to the Immigration and Naturalization Service on a man who belonged on the watch list for terror suspects. The man, Khalid al-Midhar, had been videotaped in Kuala Lumpur talking to one of the suspected terrorists in the Cole bombing (the man is now in jail in Yemen). When the INS ran its database, it found that al-Midhar was already inside the United States. The CIA asked the FBI to find him and an associate, Salem Alhamzi. But the bureau didn't have much to go on. They listed their U.S. residence as "the Marriott Hotel in New York." There are 10 Marriott-run hotels in New York. The bureau checked all of them and found nothing. Al-Midhar and Alhamzi were listed among the five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77.
Ever since the Customs Service foiled an apparent bomb plot on the eve of the millennium, U.S. intelligence has been very edgy about an attack on America. The man caught crossing between British Columbia and Seattle with explosives and timers in his car, Ahmed Ressam, later confessed that he planned to blow up Los Angeles International Airport. Ressam allegedly worked for a shadowy group of Algerian terrorists with ties to bin Laden. Twice a week, the "Threat Committee," a group of top intelligence officials and diplomats, meets in the White House complex to review dozens of terrorist threats at home and abroad. In late June the CIA warned of possible terrorist action against U.S. targets, including those in the United States, for the Fourth of July. Nothing happened, but then in July the agency again warned about possible attacks overseas. The threat seemed grave enough to force U.S. ships in Middle Eastern ports to head for sea. Three weeks ago there was another warning that a terrorist strike might be imminent. But there was no mention of where. On Sept. 10, Newsweek has learned, a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns.
But no one even dreamed that four air-liners would be hijacked and plunged into targets in New York and Washington. Some officials complain that the intelligence community has been too focused on terrorists obtaining weapons of mass destruction -- biological, chemical and nuclear -- while overlooking low-tech threats -- like the use of penknives and box cutters to hijack a plane.
The Threat Committee has every reason to worry about bin Laden's trying to get hold of a nuke. During the New York trial of the men accused of bombing the embassies in Africa, one bin Laden associate testified that the boss had hatched a 1993 plan to spend $1.5 million to buy black-market uranium. He apparently failed -- that time.
Now the Bush administration and Congress seemed primed to do just about anything to foil future attacks. Justice Department lawyers have been told to take a fresh look at "everything," one official said. Perhaps the most startling idea under examination would be a new presidential order authorizing secret military tribunals to try accused terrorists. The idea first occurred to former attorney general William Barr after the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. Barr, at the time chief of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, got the idea after learning that his office was used during World War II to try -- in secret -- German saboteurs who were later hanged. The idea was rejected, but it's being revived on the theory that terrorists are de facto military "combatants" who don't deserve the full run of constitutional rights.
Civil libertarians may balk, but never underestimate the desire for revenge. Consider some statistics: more people were killed by the suicide hijackers last week than the number of American soldiers killed in the entire American Revolution. Or at Antietam, the bloodiest one-day battle of the Civil War. Or at Pearl Harbor. Or on D-Day. And those were soldiers. War had become more and more remote and sterile to Americans who experienced combat as a phenomenon that occurred on TV, either in movies or occasionally by watching cruise missiles light up Baghdad on the evening news. Now those same American civilians are in a war. Not as spectators, but as targets.
With Michael Isikoff, Dan Klaidman, Martha Brant, Debra Rosenberg, Weston Kosova, Andy Murr, George Wehrfritz, Catharine Skipp and John Lantigua
Calm and commanding in private, warm and dignified in public,
Bush rises to the occasion in the wake of terror
By Howard Fineman
Ushered into the oval office, the quartet of senators expected only a brief, pro forma sit-down with a harried president. It was, after all, day three of the New World. The New York Democrats wanted $20 billion for their devastated city but doubted he'd commit to so large a number. The Republicans from Virginia, home to the Pentagon and the military elite, wanted to hear fighting words from the commander in chief but assumed the session was a photo op in the most nightmarishly momentous week since Pearl Harbor.
They all got more than they bargained for. The meeting didn't last minutes, but half an hour. The president, relaxed and in control, drew Sen. Hillary Clinton into a warm, familial exchange. He treated Sen. Charles Schumer like a long-lost fraternity brother. As for their aid request, "I'm with ya," the president said eagerly -- and it was approved by Congress the next day. The Virginians got promises of aid, too, and the warlike words all four senators yearned for. "When I take action," he said, "I'm not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It's going to be decisive."
Winston Churchill might not have used those words, but he'd have loved the sentiment -- and admired the maturation of the man who uttered them. Like Churchill and FDR, George Walker Bush must weld and wield a worldwide coalition in a war of breathtaking scope. And once again, as is his habit in life, he's exceeding expectations, learning on the run before our eyes.
With the World Trade Center in ruins and the Pentagon sliced apart, Americans knew what they wanted from their 43d president -- firm, cleareyed, inspirational leadership -- but didn't know what to expect. By all accounts, he was calm and commanding in private from the start. But on day one, hounded by security threats and lacking information, he was less than that in public. Dramatic acts and eloquent words are not his forte, and there weren't any as he flew from Florida to Louisiana to Nebraska to Washington aboard Air Force One, maintaining radio silence at the Secret Service's insistence.
But by day four, his feet were on the ground, his bearings set: a late bloomer blossoming in the nick of time. From a pulpit in Washington, he led the country in graceful prayer. From atop Manhattan's smoldering "pile," megaphone in hand, he roused the crowd of rescue workers in the manner of the Andover cheerleader he once was. At a gut-wrenching private meeting, Bush cried along with the families of dead firemen as they shared their stories. Working the phone at all hours, he put military and world leaders through a to-do list of astonishing length at astonishing speed. Cheered on by voters' hopes, he'd become, in the words of a priest at the National Cathedral, "our George": the designated dragon slayer, a boyish knight in a helmet of graying hair.
Americans rally round a president in a crisis but require a credible figure in the role. Bush, by the end of the week, had become that man in the voters' eyes. By an 82-11 percent margin, voters in the new Newsweek Poll approved of the way he was handling his job. That's about where Roosevelt's rating stood immediately after Pearl Harbor, and higher than the rating received by any other modern president, including Bush's father during the gulf war. An even higher ratio -- 89-8 -- specifically approved of his handling of the terrorist crisis. And by a big margin of 83-13 percent, voters said that the president is coming across as a "strong leader." All that unity produced results in Congress: a practically unanimous use-of-force authorization, $40 billion for home defense and reconstruction.
Bush passed his first tests, but like the medieval knight, he's only begun his quest -- and ours -- for security and a new architecture to preserve it. The president came to power with "unilateralist" tendencies but must now assemble the most complex diplomatic armada since the Allies in World War II. He lined up -- in some cases was handed -- support from the United Nations, NATO, Russia and ANZUS. The tricky part will be winning backing (or forbearance) from the world's Islamic states. Bush can no longer allow them to sanction or ignore Osama bin Laden's twisted theory of holy war. But insisting that they become allies, as Bush is doing, could open them to "destabilization" by fundamentalists, who see America as satanic. It's a labyrinth more tangled than the one Bush's father, with far more experience, had to navigate.
The challenges at home are just as tough. Bush has called Americans to "war," but to win it will take years and, almost certainly, American casualties. In the Newsweek Poll, voters favor attacking bin Laden by a 54-40 percent margin; they want to go after terrorist bases and countries that harbor terrorists by 71-21 percent. But will that resolve last if our losses mount -- or, worse, if our actions provoke new terrorist attacks? For in the new world war, civilians are combat-ants, whether they want to be or not.
Providing a state-of-the-art "homeland defense" -- Washington's new buzz term -- will be costly. "Hardening" the transportation, communications and energy infrastructure could cost a half-trillion dollars; ongoing personnel costs could be staggering. The much-predicted clash between the old and the young could finally materialize as a recession shrinks the "surpluses" and defense spending absorbs the rest.
Security will require another type of sacrifice -- of freedoms. In the Newsweek Poll, voters say they are willing to give up privacy in air travel, but they are more skeptical of other measures, such as surveillance of e-mail and phone conversations. By a 62-32 percent margin, they reject "special surveillance" of Arab-Americans. Yet even before last week's attacks, the Senate intelligence committee had voted extra funds for Internet surveillance and "profiling" measures, and agitation for more is sure to mount.
The challenges are enormous. And now it is the Bush family and its liegemen, wedded to public service for 50 years, who are summoned to meet them. Last Monday night -- the last day of The World As We Knew It -- Bush's parents came to Washington, though their son had flown off to talk about education in Florida. Dad had a speech to give, and groused to friends that too many (in the media especially) underestimated his son.
Four days later "Old 41" was back in the capital, sitting with Barbara in the first pew of the National Cathedral as their eldest son spoke. "In every generation," the 43d president said, "the world has produced enemies of human freedom. They have attacked America because we are freedom's home and defender. And the commitment of our fathers is now the calling of our time." When the son returned to the pew, his father patted him on the hand as if to say "Well done." And the country, gladly, agreed.
With T. Trent Gegax, Debra Rosenberg and Matt Bai
SOURCE Newsweek
CO: Newsweek
ST: New York
IN: PUB
SU:
09/16/2001 10:34 EDT prnewswire.com |
