Uncle Sam's lucky finds

Anne Karpf

Tuesday March 19, 2002

The Guardian

On Sunday night the United States prepared for fresh strikes against new pockets of al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. At almost exactly the same time, American intelligence revealed that they had uncovered an increase in money being transferred between groups of al-Qaida fighters. According to my reckoning, this is the 14th handy thing that American intelligence has discovered since September 11. Think back over the past six months and it becomes ineluctable: never in the history of modern warfare has so much been found so opportunely.

It started the day after the attacks on the twin towers, with the discovery of a flight manual in Arabic and a copy of the Koran in a car hired by Mohammed Atta and abandoned at Boston airport. In the immediate shocked aftermath of the attacks, these findings were somehow reassuring: American intelligence was on the case, the perpetrators were no longer faceless.

In less than a week came another find, two blocks away from the twin towers, in the shape of Atta's passport. We had all seen the blizzard of paper rain down from the towers, but the idea that Atta's passport had escaped from that inferno unsinged would have tested the credulity of the staunchest supporter of the FBI's crackdown on terrorism.

Yet we were still in the infancy of coincidence. On September 24 the belongings of alleged terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui threw up a cropdusting manual, while four days later came Atta's suicide note, the one with the counsel to shine your shoes before you meet your maker - a piece of advice which seemed suspiciously Norman Rockwellesque. It was here, too, that the stuff about 72 virgins awaiting him in heaven first started to circulate.

snip-

Read Complete Article Here