Khalid Sheik Mohammed takes blame for planning 911

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

SLATE: >Everybody [i.e., all "major" US newspapers] leads with news
that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11
attacks, confessed that he organized those attacks, and quite a few
more, at a military hearing on Saturday at Guantanamo Bay. The
Pentagon released a transcript of the closed hearing last night. "I
was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z," Mohammed told
the panel. Mohammed listed 31 terrorist plots he claimed to be
"responsible" for as al-Qaida's "military operational commander for
all foreign operations around the world."

> Mohammed's admission is hardly a surprise. In its final report, the
Sept. 11 commission discussed several interrogation reports in which
Mohammed allegedly took responsibility for the attacks. But this was
the first time Mohammed faced any sort of legal proceeding and the
first time he was able to make a long statement without interrogators.
During the proceedings in Guantanamo, Mohammed said some of his
previous statements were made as a result of torture. At one point
Mohammed compared Osama Bin Laden to George Washington. "If now we
were living in the Revolutionary War and George Washington, he being
arrested through Britain, for sure they would consider him enemy
combatant," he said.<

I guess the only true significance of this story is that it's a piece
of evidence against the "the Bushwhackers planned 911" perspective.
But KSM's statements might be the result of torture.

> In the hearing, Mohammed expressed regret for some of the civilian deaths. "I'm not happy that 3,000 been killed in America. … I feel sorry even. I don't like to kill children and the kids." But he emphasized "the language of war is victims." Mohammed's statements were part of a series of closed hearings being held in Guantanamo for 14 "high-value detainees" that were transferred from secret CIA prisons.<

"the language of war is victims" fits well with the Pentagon's view
that "collateral damage" is inevitable. Enemies often resemble each
other.

> The New York Times and Washington Post point out it's not clear
exactly how involved Mohammed could have been in all the plots he
detailed. The Sept. 11 commission at one point described Mohammed as
someone with extravagant ambitions who had a vision that was "a
spectacle of destruction with KSM as the self-cast star, the
superterrorist." But the Los Angeles Times quotes a terrorism expert,
who says most of the plots he described did seem to have some
leadership from Mohammed. USA Today points out that the majority of
the targets described by Mohammed "were not hit," such as the Panama
Canal, the New York Stock Exchange, and Big Ben. The Wall Street
Journal says many of the plots "never got beyond the planning stage."
<
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Jim Devine / "The truth is more important than the facts." -- Frank Lloyd Wright