TIME: Can Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's Confession Be Believed?

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TIME: Can Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's Confession Be Believed?

Can KSM's Confession Be Believed?
Thursday, Mar. 15, 2007
By ADAM ZAGORIN/WASHINGTON

Little in the just released confession of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the presumed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, is new. The U.S. government long ago cataloged those alleged crimes based on extensive interrogations of Mohammed and other prisoners held in the CIA's controversial and now liquidated overseas prisons. But the transcripts of Mohammed's hearing � part of proceedings that began last Friday at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba � are the first time the U.S. government has made publicly available his personal description of a stunning range of terrorist plots he claims to have had a hand in. These include both the 1993 and 2001 assaults on the World Trade Center, as well as the beheading of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Mohammed boasts he had complete or partial participation in 29 terror plots, some of which were never carried out.

As the transcript portrays him, Mohammed spoke with a meandering elocution before three military officials, with no lawyer but an air force officer by his side serving as a "personal adviser." He came across as an earnest, somewhat chatty mass murderer taking credit for plans to detonate the Panama Canal as well as New York City landmarks like the stock exchange. He also mentions assassination plots directed at former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton as well as Pope John Paul II. Several of the conspiracies he cited, notably the one involving President Carter, have not previously been disclosed.

Are Mohammed's claims to be believed? He has long been described � notably in The 9/11 Commission Report � as prone to exaggeration and self-aggrandizement, fond of portraying himself as a "superterrorist." The notes to the Commission's conclusions mention the possibility of Mohammed "inflating his own role." He may also be attempting to defend his part in the 9/11 planning against the testimony of other terror suspects. The Commission's notes indicate that, according to another terror chieftain, Abu Zubaydah, Mohammed originally offered Osama bin Laden a more modest proposal for attacking the U.S., but that bin Laden reportedly berated him, saying "Why do you use an ax when you can use a bulldozer?" What's more, Mohammed has also used disinformation in the past. He admitted under previous interrogation that a list of 30 supposed U.S. targets, which he circulated shortly after 9/11, was a lie to exaggerate the scale of al-Qaeda's planning...

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At a time when the Bush Administration is facing stiff criticism in a variety of domestic scandals as well as for its conduct of the Iraq war, Mohammed's confession has quickly become a focus of cable TV and other media coverage, a reminder of America's ongoing battle against international terrorism. But the attention focussed on Mohammed, thought to be al-Qaeda's third-ranking leader, also underscores the fact that the terrorist organization's chief, Osama bin Laden, and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, remain at large at a time when their former Taliban protectors in Afghanistan are resurgent.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1599423,00.html?xid=site-cnn-partner