Armitage’s words were seen as further evidence that Washington’s hunt for Osama bin Laden had become, said a Mossad officer with years of experience in counterterrorism (to the author), “that most dangerous of all in intelligence, a hunt driven by an obsession that overrides all else. For Bush, nailing bin Laden had become personal from 9/11. He would continue to sanction huge sums, men, and materials to capture him. Anyone who could help do that could ask for anything. Musharraf was in that category.”
The president had seized power in a coup d’état in 1999. Despite the country’s large Muslim majority, many of whom were fundamentalists, when 9/11 happened Musharraf offered unwavering support for Bush’s war on terrorism. It was a huge gamble for a president who by then was already finding it hard to hold on to power. He had survived three assassination attempts and daily found himself confronting not only the country’s religious leaders over their entrenched anti-American views but also the army and the ISI for his support in the war on terrorism. For many of them bin Laden was a folk hero. As he flitted through the mountains bordering Afghanistan with the peaks of the Northwest Frontier, always one step ahead of the U.S. Special Forces hunting him, he received help from members of the ISI.
At the time Khan was making his confession on television, the Special Forces near the northern provinces of Pakistan had once more picked up bin Laden’s trail. The sightings were sent to the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on to the CIA, and finally to the Pentagon and State Department. Everyone recognized that this was a sensitive time. Only a week before, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Musharraf had said he would not allow American troops to search for bin Laden inside Pakistan. Washington had gritted its teeth and said nothing.
Mossad’s station in the capital had pieced together the understanding of what had transpired behind the scenes. Washington would not pressurize Musharraf to bring Khan for trial over nuclear arms trafficking. Instead, it would remain focused on Pakistan’s continued support for the war on terrorism. In return the Pakistan army and the ISI would hunt for bin Laden inside the country. U.S. Special Forces would be allowed to participate but only under Pakistani command. It was a recipe for mutual suspicion in the field; and after four weeks, not surprisingly with no trace of bin Laden, the search was abandoned.
Bin Laden had issued several tapes since he had first exulted over the destruction of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. The Mossad specialists—psychiatrists, psychologists, and behavioural scientists—determined that bin Laden continued to sound like a man who had created his own reality. Their conclusion (seen by the author) was: “At the core of his thinking is death. From his manner and his speech patterns, death is now an integral part of his life. It is not rage that drives him. There is a deeper and all-animating and all-emerging force. His voice is not simply that of the classic street demagogue. It displays what can be called ‘the evil of the truly evil.’ Hitler and Stalin possessed the same vocal traits. He is driven by masked violence. This allows him to operate in a completely detached manner against all those he does not accept have a right to live.”
The arrival of his latest video in November 2004 had caused a frisson of excitement among the Mossad analysts. It had been made in a television studio with good quality sound and lighting. He had been filmed against a silk drape; its yellow color was known to be that of his favourite Afghan flower. But it was bin Laden himself who intrigued the analysts. His robes were no longer those of the mountain man but those worn by wealthy city dwellers. His stick and the Kalashnikov rifle slung over his shoulder—props he had always displayed on previous videos—had gone. His beard was neatly trimmed, his eyes clear, his skin healthy. He no longer looked the sick man of his previous videos. When he spoke, his delivery was calm and measured. In earlier videos his mumbling and hesitations had been marked. The latest video suggested he had received professional voice coaching. When he spoke, it was directly into the camera.
The Mossad analysts wondered if the video had been made either in Pakistan or even possibly in one of the northwest provinces of China, where several million Muslims lived in uneasy communion with the Beijing regime. Untold thousands were al-Qaeda supporters and worked in gangs smuggling humans or narcotics into the West. The analysts concluded that one of those gangs had been entrusted to bring the video to Al-Jazeera. As usual, the station publicly insisted it had no idea how the tape came into its hands.
