Why Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's Confession Rings False
El_Kabong
Posts: 4,141
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1599861,00.html
or
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1599861,00.html
It's hard to tell what the Pentagon's objective really is in releasing the transcript of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession. It certainly suggests the Administration is trying to blame KSM for al-Qaeda terrorism, leading us to believe we've caught the master terrorist and that al-Qaeda, and especially the ever-elusive bin Laden, is no longer a threat to the U.S.
But there is a major flaw in that marketing strategy. On the face of it, KSM, as he is known inside the government, comes across as boasting, at times mentally unstable. It's also clear he is making things up. I'm told by people involved in the investigation that KSM was present during Wall Street Journal correspondent Danny Pearl's execution but was in fact not the person who killed him. There exists videotape footage of the execution that minimizes KSM's role. And if KSM did indeed exaggerate his role in the Pearl murder, it raises the question of just what else he has exaggerated, or outright fabricated.
Just as importantly, there is an absence of collateral evidence that would support KSM's story. KSM claims he was "responsible for the 9/11 operation from A-Z." Yet he has omitted details that would support his role. For instance, one of the more intriguing mysteries is who recruited and vetted the fifteen Saudi hijackers, the so-called "muscle." The well-founded suspicion is that Qaeda was running a cell inside the Kingdom that spotted these young men and forwarded them to al-Qaeda. KSM and al-Qaeda often appear bumbling, but they would never have accepted recruits they couldn't count on. KSM does not offer us an answer as to how this worked.
KSM has also not offered evidence of state support to al-Qaeda, though there is good evidence there was, even at a low level. KSM himself was harbored by a member of Qatar's royal family after he was indicted in the U.S. for the Bojinka plot — a plan to bomb twelve American airplanes over the Pacific. KSM and al-Qaeda also received aid from supporters in Pakistan, quite possibly from sympathizers in the Pakistani intelligence service. KSM provides no details that would suggest we are getting the full story from him.
Although he claims to have been al-Qaeda's foreign operations chief, he has offered no information about European networks. Today, dozens of investigations are going on in Great Britain surrounding the London tube bombings on July 7, 2005. Yet KSM apparently knew nothing about these networks or has not told his interrogators about them.
The fact is al-Qaeda is too smart to put all of its eggs in one basket. It has not and does not have a field commander, the role KSM has arrogated. It works on the basis of "weak links," mounting terrorist operations by bringing in people on an ad hoc basis, and immediately disbanding the group afterwards.
Until we hear more, the mystery of who KSM is and what he was responsible for is still a mystery.
Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is the author of See No Evil and, most recently, the novel Blow the House Down
or
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1599861,00.html
It's hard to tell what the Pentagon's objective really is in releasing the transcript of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession. It certainly suggests the Administration is trying to blame KSM for al-Qaeda terrorism, leading us to believe we've caught the master terrorist and that al-Qaeda, and especially the ever-elusive bin Laden, is no longer a threat to the U.S.
But there is a major flaw in that marketing strategy. On the face of it, KSM, as he is known inside the government, comes across as boasting, at times mentally unstable. It's also clear he is making things up. I'm told by people involved in the investigation that KSM was present during Wall Street Journal correspondent Danny Pearl's execution but was in fact not the person who killed him. There exists videotape footage of the execution that minimizes KSM's role. And if KSM did indeed exaggerate his role in the Pearl murder, it raises the question of just what else he has exaggerated, or outright fabricated.
Just as importantly, there is an absence of collateral evidence that would support KSM's story. KSM claims he was "responsible for the 9/11 operation from A-Z." Yet he has omitted details that would support his role. For instance, one of the more intriguing mysteries is who recruited and vetted the fifteen Saudi hijackers, the so-called "muscle." The well-founded suspicion is that Qaeda was running a cell inside the Kingdom that spotted these young men and forwarded them to al-Qaeda. KSM and al-Qaeda often appear bumbling, but they would never have accepted recruits they couldn't count on. KSM does not offer us an answer as to how this worked.
KSM has also not offered evidence of state support to al-Qaeda, though there is good evidence there was, even at a low level. KSM himself was harbored by a member of Qatar's royal family after he was indicted in the U.S. for the Bojinka plot — a plan to bomb twelve American airplanes over the Pacific. KSM and al-Qaeda also received aid from supporters in Pakistan, quite possibly from sympathizers in the Pakistani intelligence service. KSM provides no details that would suggest we are getting the full story from him.
Although he claims to have been al-Qaeda's foreign operations chief, he has offered no information about European networks. Today, dozens of investigations are going on in Great Britain surrounding the London tube bombings on July 7, 2005. Yet KSM apparently knew nothing about these networks or has not told his interrogators about them.
The fact is al-Qaeda is too smart to put all of its eggs in one basket. It has not and does not have a field commander, the role KSM has arrogated. It works on the basis of "weak links," mounting terrorist operations by bringing in people on an ad hoc basis, and immediately disbanding the group afterwards.
Until we hear more, the mystery of who KSM is and what he was responsible for is still a mystery.
Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is the author of See No Evil and, most recently, the novel Blow the House Down
standin above the crowd
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way
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take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
but the illusion of knowledge.
~Daniel Boorstin
Only a life lived for others is worth living.
~Albert Einstein
He's no longer relevant because the US can't get him... so they found someone else who was 'happy' to confess to everything... I bet you if the US had a few more minutes with him, he would have confessed he broke the window of my car as well!
Listening to news stories from various countries, no one believes this confessions are valid (except the US maybe?). Toture is a hell of a tool if you need a scapegoat.
I guess it doesn't matter if we even have evidence, he will be held for the rest of his life and probably never charged anyway.
Is Shaikh Mohammed Telling the Truth?
In a courtroom diatribe, 9/11's mastermind boasts about his exploits. Is he telling the truth?
By Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
March 26, 2007 issue - In the four years since U.S. and Pakistani forces captured alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, intelligence agencies have disclosed little about his confinement and only selective details about what he told his interrogators. Held for more than three years in secret CIA prisons overseas, KSM, as the government refers to him, was subjected to aggressive interrogation methods. Last year KSM was moved to the prison at Guantánamo Bay with 13 other "high value" terrorists.
Now comes the next phase of KSM's long, slow trip through post-9/11 justice. On March 10, he was brought into a small, barren courtroom, where he faced a panel of anonymous U.S. military officers who must determine if he is an "enemy combatant" subject to trial by a military tribunal.
For the first time since his capture, Mohammed was given the opportunity to speak publicly on his own behalf. In a rambling diatribe in fractured English, he did not hold back his feelings. "For sure, I'm American enemies ... So when we say we are enemy combatant, that right. We are," he told the tribunal, according to a censored account of his testimony made public by the Pentagon. KSM expressed regret about those who died in the attacks: "When I said I'm not happy that 3,000 been killed in America, I feel sorry even. I don't like to kill children and the kids."
He went on to compare himself and other Qaeda leaders to America's Founding Fathers: "As consider George Washington as hero, Muslims, many of them, are considering Osama bin Laden. He is doing the same thing. He is just fighting." In a written statement read out to the tribunal, KSM claimed credit for more than 30 terror plots, though his list of crimes included a considerable measure of exaggeration. "I would discount 25 percent of what he said in terms of his personal responsibility," says Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA unit that tracked Osama bin Laden. Another former CIA official—who, like other intelligence sources, asked for anonymity due to the sensitive subject matter—said interrogators quickly recognized KSM's egomania: "He was known to have a large ego and would regularly take credit for anything he was in the vicinity of." That has left government officials to figure out which of KSM's stories are true, and which are exaggerations or outright lies.
There is considerable evidence substantiating KSM's role in many deadly terror plots, including 9/11, a planned second wave of post-9/11 attacks on other U.S. targets, the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl (whose head KSM claims to have personally severed "with my blessed right hand"), a planned attack on New York City bridges and plots to kill Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
But his involvement in other plots is murkier. KSM told the tribunal he was "responsible" for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and for plots to assassinate President Bill Clinton and Pope John Paul II. But it is unclear if this is true. Bernard Kleinman, a lawyer for KSM's nephew, terrorist Ramzi Yousef—who was convicted for carrying out the 1993 WTC attack—doesn't believe it. He told NEWSWEEK that Yousef "would dispute" KSM's claim to have had a leading role in any of these plans.
Some of the other plots KSM claimed to have hatched may have been made up, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials. They included an attack on the Panama Canal, a plan to destroy an oil company in Sumatra supposedly owned by former secretary of State Henry Kissinger and a plot to assassinate former president Jimmy Carter. (Kissinger and Carter said through spokespeople that they hadn't heard of these plots. Kissinger said he never owned an oil company in Sumatra.) With a résumé as bloody as his, it's a wonder KSM felt the need to exaggerate at all.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17664173/site/newsweek/?from=rss
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln