former members of Al Qaeda: Vernon Loeb and Christine Haughney, “Four Guilty in Embassy Bombings,” Seattle Times, May 30, 2001.
send him to the American courts: “Taliban Won’t Hand Over Osama Bin Laden,” PBS: Online, NewsHour, May 29, 2001.
CHAPTER 6: THE FIGHT BEGINS
That same morning: The four hijacked flights that morning departed between 7:59 A.M. and 8:20 A.M.
“Tighten your clothes well”: Muhammad ‘Ata al-Sayyid, “Final Instructions,” in Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts and Context from al-Banna to Bin Laden, ed. by Roxanne L. Euben and Muhammad Qasim Zaman, (Princeton University Press, 2009), 436–59.
“When you board the airplane”: Ibid., 469.
four hundred miles per hour: “Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7,” National Institute of Standards and Technology, November 2008, 15.
“for the sake of God”: Muhammad ‘Ata, “Final Instructions,” 471.
fifty thousand reserve troops: Jane Perlez, “After the Attacks: The Overview: U.S. Demands Arab Countries ‘Choose Sides,’” New York Times, September 15, 2001.
“with the terrorists”: George W. Bush, “Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People,” The George W. Bush White House website, September 20, 2001.
his ambassador to Pakistan: This scene is recounted by the former ambassador, Abdul Salam Zaeef, in his memoir, My Life with the Taliban (Columbia University Press, 2010), 149.
“resort to anything beyond threats”: Ibid.
Green Berets into northern Afghanistan: Gary Bernsten, Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda (Crown, 2005), 78.
Mullah Omar’s compound outside Kandahar: Ibid, 82.
blows against the United States: The effectiveness of these attacks—infrequent but more and more spectacular—were inseparable from bin Laden’s drumbeat of messaging that played on the increasingly unblinking media environment of the 1990s, including the growing private Arab TV stations. See Omar Saghi, “Introduction,” in Al Qaeda in Its Own Words, ed. Gilles Kepel and Jean-Pierre Milelli (Belknap Press, 2008), 24–28.
“wherever they find them”: Osama bin Laden, “World Islamic Front Statement Urging Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders,” in Al Qaeda in Its Own Words, 55.
two army engineer officers: Steve Vogel, The Pentagon: A History (Random House, 2008), xxiii–xxv.
air-conditioned office space: Ibid., 40. Other details about the concept for the Pentagon come from the same work, especially 137, 155.
17.5 miles of corridors: Ibid., xi.
thirty-three thousand workers: Ibid., 356.
first occupants in April 1942: Ibid., 213.
eighteen months from concept: Ibid., 295.
after midnight on October 11: “Vote Summary on the Joint Resolution (H.J. Res. 114),” U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes, 107th Cong., 2nd sess., October 11, 2002 available from the Library of Congress THOMAS website. President Bush signed it into law five days later, on October 16, as Public Law 107-243.
refused to contribute: Robin Wright and Sonya Yee, “Mobilization of Iraqi Exiles Falls Short,” Los Angeles Times, March 29, 2003.