[A-List] US imperialism: Mohammed as Mr. Big

["annewilliamson" <annewilliamson@xxxxxxx>]

'Terror Boss' Moves Up Ladder As US Sees Fit
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed -- From 22 To 2

3/10/03 10:52:15 AM
Chicago Sun-Times

Chicago, Illinois --
http://www.suntimes.com/output/pickett/cst-nws-pickett04.html

'Terror boss' moves up ladder as U.S. sees fit

March 4, 2003

BY DEBRA PICKETT SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

A month after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush released a list of the
world's most-wanted terrorists. There were 22 names on it. Khalid Shaikh
Mohammed was No. 22.

And the list wasn't alphabetical.

But, sometime between then and early Saturday morning, when Mohammed was
captured in Pakistan, the U.S. government identified Mohammed as the
mastermind behind the al-Qaida plot.

Osama bin Laden, we're now told, is pretty much a figurehead: It's
Mohammed who made things happen. Over the past 2-1/2 years, he's climbed
from last
place to a photo finish for No. 1 on the most-wanted list.

The cynical view on this is that Mohammed is still the relatively small
fish we were first told he was, but the news of his arrest is being hyped
because the Bush administration needs a victory in the war on terrorism
before going to war in Iraq.

The merely skeptical view is that we are clueless about how al-Qaida
really works.

When Mohammed's name first made international news, he was described as an
accomplice to Ramzi Yousef, the convicted mastermind behind the first
World Trade Center bombing, in 1993. In retrospect, that might have been
Mohammed's stint in the terrorist-mastermind internship program.

In the first intelligence reports following the 2001 attacks, Mohammed was
named as an "al-Qaida operative," a couple of levels down the
organizational chart from bin Laden's top deputy, Egyptian doctor Ayman
Zawahiri,
al-Qaida military commander Mohammed Atef and security chief Saif al-Adil.
Those
were the big fish.

Mohammed's name came up again when officials began to speculate about how
al-Qaida might be reorganizing in the wake of the U.S.-led war in
Afghanistan.

With bin Laden apparently on the run, and periodically presumed to be
dead, it seemed to make sense that an operational guy, with a lower profile,
might
step in to run things. Mohammed seemed to be that guy. He was described as
"al-
Qaida's engineer," a nerdy, uncharismatic sort, a middle manager who'd
probably never get the key to the executive washroom, no matter how much
he sucked up to the boss.

Then, in the summer of 2002, things started to change.

News reports quoted U.S. officials as saying that Mohammed was like
the "Forrest Gump of al-Qaida." His name and fingerprints seemed to be
everywhere. He'd been involved in all of al-Qaida's major attacks. But no
one had noticed. The class nerd has a way of fading into the background.

Around the same time, the government started to release intelligence
information it had gathered from "various sources," which, we all
understood, included alleged al-Qaida members being held at Guantanamo Bay
and other,
undisclosed, locations. Abu Zubeida, who was described as a top bin Laden
lieutenant when he was captured in Pakistan last year, is widely assumed
to be one of those sources. He's apparently the first person to have told
U.S.
officials that Mohammed was the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

Here in Illinois, we've learned a little something about the reliability
of jailhouse witnesses. It's not clear that U.S. intelligence officers have
come to the same understanding. Soon after their first interrogations of
Zubeida, the government offered a $25 million reward for Mohammed's capture.

Forrest Gump had become an official terrorist mastermind.

For the first time in his long al-Qaida career, he appeared on al-Jazeera
TV, the CNN of the Arab world. His bosses were nowhere to be found.
Mohammed had replaced bin Laden as the face of al-Qaida. He'd also replaced
the
Rev. Jesse Jackson as the world's most famous North Carolina Agricultural &
Technical State University alumnus.

Mohammed's star fell, briefly, when a raid in Karachi, Pakistan, last
September netted Ramzi bin al-Shibh. When we captured him, President Bush
announced that bin al-Shibh was "one of the chief planners and organizers"
of the Sept. 11 attacks. Then, like Zubeida before him, this alleged big
shot
apparently told intelligence officers that no, he wasn't very important
within al-Qaida; it was really Mohammed they wanted.

Now, we have him. But no one seems to be breathing any great sighs of
relief. We don't feel any safer. We're just waiting for the next revision
to the most-wanted list.

It seems that every time we capture one of these guys, we insist that he's
the one we wanted all along. Then, he points a finger at Khalid Shaikh
Mohammed. So you have to wonder who Mohammed himself will blame.

A cynic might guess that he'd modestly decline to take credit and,
instead, tell us, finally, who was truly responsible for the Sept. 11
attacks:

Saddam Hussein.

E-mail: dpickett@xxxxxxxxxxxx