[kj] interview

[gathering@misera.net]

I dug around to find the reports, and turns out I was a bit off....Bin Laden=
=20
purportedly claimed he only hoped/expected for the floors above the point of=
=20
impact to collapse. See bold type below.....
=20

Pentagon Releases Bin Laden Tape

Friday, December 14, 2001
WASHINGTON =E2=80=94 A gleeful, laughing Usama bin Laden described the joy h=
e felt=20
when he learned his plan to destroy the World Trade Center had succeeded=20=
=E2=80=94 and=20
more than 3,000 people had been murdered =E2=80=94 on a videotape released b=
y the=20
Pentagon Thursday.

Bin Laden, smirking and remorseless, told associates on the videotape that h=
e=20
had advance knowledge of the plan to hijack airliners and smash them into th=
e
Twin Towers and the Pentagon. A fourth airliner that was heading toward=20
Washington crashed in western Pennsylvania.

U.S. officials said the chilling videotape proves that bin Laden was the=20
mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Bin Laden called the hijackings a "martyrdom operation," and said the men wh=
o=20
carried them out didn't know the precise details until just before they=20
boarded the planes.

He recalled tuning in to the radio to hear American news broadcasts of the=20
attack.=20

"They were overjoyed when the first plane hit the building," he said of=20
others listening with him that day. "So I said to them: Be patient."=20

He said, "At the end of the newscast, they reported that a plane just hit th=
e=20
World Trade Center."=20

"Allah be praised," replied one of the other men in the videotape.=20

"After a little while, they announced that another plane had hit the World=20
Trade Center," bin Laden recalled. "The brothers who heard the news were=20
overjoyed by it."=20

The video, apparently not intended for public viewing, records a meal and=20
conversation between bin Laden and a Saudi Arabian sheik, a prominent cleric=
 whom=20
officials have declined to identify. At one point, the sheik kisses bin Lade=
n=20
on the forehead =E2=80=94 a sign of great respect in the Muslim world.=20

On the tape, bin Laden said "we calculated in advance" the number of=20
casualties in the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four=20
floors; I was the most optimistic of them all.

"Due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the=20
gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse=20=
the=20
area where
the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This was all that we had=20
hoped for."=20

He said Mohammed Atta was the leader of the suicide hijackers, and that the=20
terrorists did not know the details of the plan until just before they board=
ed=20
the
planes.

"The brothers who conducted the operation, all they knew was that they have=20=
a=20
martyrdom operation and we asked each of them to go to America, but they
didn't know anything about the operation, not even one letter," bin Laden=20
said.=20

"But they were trained and we did not reveal the operation to them until the=
y=20
are there and just before they boarded the plane," he added.=20

With a smile on his face, bin Laden said those trained to fly didn't know th=
e=20
other hijackers in the group.=20

"One group of people didn't know the other," he said.

Two bin Laden associates =E2=80=94 spiritual adviser Ayman al-Zawahri and sp=
okesman=20
Abu Ghaith =E2=80=94 also appear in the tape.

On the tape, bin Laden is sitting on the floor of a spare room, talking with=
=20
the other men.=20

Entering the room, bin Laden bends over to greet the sheik, then smilingly=20
takes his place next to him, sitting cross-legged on the floor.=20

The sheik promptly thanks bin Laden, saying, "You have given us weapons, you=
=20
have given us hope and we thank Allah for you."=20

"Everybody praises what you did, the great action you did, which was first=20
and foremost by the grace of Allah," the sheik continued. "This is the guida=
nce=20
of
Allah and the blessed fruit of Jihad."=20

"Thanks to Allah," replied bin Laden.=20

The sheik informed bin Laden that another cleric had delivered a sermon in=20
Saudi Arabia Sept. 11. "He said this was jihad and those people were not inn=
ocent
victims," the sheik said, apparently referring to the victims of the World=20
Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.=20

References to jihad, or holy war, and Allah run throughout the videotape, an=
d=20
at one point bin Laden recites a portion of verse: "I was ordered to fight=20
the people
until they say there is no god but Allah, and his prophet Muhammad."=20

Moments later, he said, "This event made people think [about true Islam],=20
which benefitted Islam greatly," he said.=20

The approximately one-hour videotape was released Thursday after a team of=20
four non-government translators brought in by the Pentagon listened to it to
interpret bin Laden's Arabic and agree on a uniform version of his remarks.=20=
=20

U.S. intelligence officers found the tape in a residence in Jalalabad. It=20
bears a date stamp that says it was made Nov. 9.=20

The Pentagon offered a statement saying it released the tape after balancing=
=20
"concerns about any additional pain that could be caused by its release=20
against the
value of having the world fully appreciate what we are up against in the war=
=20
against terrorism."=20

"There was no doubt of bin Laden's responsibility for the Sept. 11 attacks=20
before the tape was discovered," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said i=
n the
statement.=20

Numerous U.S. officials had already seen the tape prior to its release, and=20
several members of the House and Senate intelligence committees had urged th=
e
Bush administration to release it.=20

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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