“To establish the truth”: Al Qaeda’s bylaws can be found on the website of the West Point Combating Terrorism Center. These lines are also quoted in Wright, Looming Tower, 162.
September 10, 1988: “Government’s Evidentiary Proffer Supporting the Admissibility of Coconspirator Statements: U.S. v. Enaam M. Arnaout,” United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, January 6, 2003, 36–37. This document, which has served as a basis for much of the public understanding of Al Qaeda’s founding, is a court document from the 2002–2003 case U.S. v. Enaam M. Arnaout. It provides a summary of one of the files recovered in March 2002, when Bosnian authorities raided the Sarajevo offices of the Benevolence International Foundation, an Islamic charity. The file, “Tareekh Usama” (“The History of Usama”), contained a firsthand account of Al Qaeda’s founding and the events surrounding it. Peter L. Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know (Free Press, 2006), 75.
“Trusted sources” would vouch: “Government’s Evidentiary Proffer,” 36.
separate from the conventional one: Wright, Looming Tower, 162. Bergen notes that “prosaic” concerns over security—as Middle Eastern governments may have been trying to infiltrate the volunteer ranks—prompted Al Qaeda’s creation and that the organization was mostly a separate guesthouse to prevent its being compromised. Peter L. Bergen, Holy War, Inc. (Free Press, 2001), 62.
hardened Egyptians: Wright, Looming Tower, 162.
met with the king: US News & World Report staff, Triumph Without Victory: The Unreported History of the Persian Gulf War (Random House, 1992), 82; Wright, Looming Tower, 178.
one hundred thousand Muslims ready: Wright, Looming Tower, 178–79. Wright notes that bin Laden’s offer “was a bizarre and grandiose replication of General Schwarzkopf’s briefing.”
hundreds of pamphlets: Central Intelligence Agency, “Usama Bin Ladin: Islamist Extremist Financier” (declassified 1996 memorandum), available on the George Washington University’s National Security Archives website.
Yemen: Abu Musab al Suri, quoted in Tawil, Brothers in Arms, 27. For a discussion of bin Laden’s early focus on fighting communism, see Wright, Looming Tower, 150.
CHAPTER 5: PREPARATION
killed nineteen White Devils: The crash resulted in 130 casualties, including 24 fatalities. Mary Ellen Condon-Rall, Disaster on Green Ramp: The Army’s Response (Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1996), appendix.
parachute drop since World War II: John R. Ballard, Upholding Democracy: The United States Military Campaign in Haiti, 1994–1997 (Praeger, 1998), xiii.
“the most violent regime”: Bill Clinton, “In the Words of the President: The Reasons Why the U.S. May Invade Haiti,” New York Times, September 16, 1994.
sixty-one war planes: Douglas Jehl, “Haiti’s Military Leaders Agree to Resign,” New York Times, September 19, 1994.
deaths occur on the field: “Historically, approximately 90% of combat-related deaths occur prior to a casualty reaching a medical treatment facility (MTF).” Russ S. Kotwal et al., “Eliminating Preventable Death on the Battlefield,” Archives of Surgery (December 2011), 1350).
emergency medical technicians (EMTs): “100% were trained as first responders, 10% as emergency medical technicians” (Sherry Wren, “Invited Critique,” in Kotwal et al., “Eliminating Preventable Death,” 1358).
more than eight thousand operations: The time frame for these raids was October 1, 2001, to March 31, 2010. Kotwal et al., “Eliminating Preventable Death,” 1351.