Khalid Sheik Mohammed, he mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, said that he was unable to plan and orchestrate future attacks on U.S soil due to “the ferocity and swiftness of George W. Bush’s response.”
That’s according to a new book by James E. Mitchell, a contractor for the CIA who was contracted to develop “enhanced interrogation techniques” in efforts to gather intel from captured terrorists.
In his book, Mitchell describes his many interactions with Mohammed, including how Mohammed claimed to be the one who killed captured Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, and how Mohammed allegedly told him of other attacks he had wanted to carry out. He wasn’t able to put those plans into actions, however, due in part to the strong U.S response to global terrorism.
KSM stated that he expected the U.S to respond to 9/11 like it had responded to earlier terrorist attacks like the 1983 bombing of Marine barracks in Beirut, when the U.S “turned tail and ran,” or treat it like a law enforcement matter such as was done for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the USS Cole in Yemen.
According to Mitchell, KSM told him, “How was I supposed to know that cowboy George Bush would announce he wanted us ‘dead or alive’ and then invade Afghanistan to hunt us down?”
Had the U.S not responded so fiercely or treated 9/11 like a law enforcement matter, KSM felt that he would have been able to launch a “second wave” of attacks, Mitchell said.
Bush, of course, received a lot of criticism from all sides of the aisle for his handling of America’s operations in Afghanistan and Iraq during the later years of his presidency. If these claims are to be believed, however, it would seem that his fast and decisive actions helped prevent more brutal attacks.
Mitchell also included a small warning from KSM as well, saying the terrorist believes that his side will eventually win “because Americans don’t realize… we do not need to defeat you militarily; we only need to fight long enough for you to defeat yourself by quitting.”
Once Americans “become so tired, so frightened, and so weary” of the long, ensuing conflict, KSM stated that eventually “America will expose her neck for us to slaughter.”
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