and on sundays, news makers, "q & a" and "prime minister's questions" from the british hold-out of commons. you can watch our programming any time at c-span.org. it is all searchable at our video library. c-span, washington your way, >> this week is "q&a," author and investigative journalist, miniter. his latest book is called "mastermind: the many faces of the 9/11 architect, khalid sheikh mohammed." host: richard miniter, author of "mastermind." what is it? >> "mastermind" is the first book to look at the life of khalid sheikh mohammed, the man who planned the 9/11 attacks and

all of the other major al qaeda attacks that you've heard about, he's the deadly brains behind al qaeda. he's what made al qaeda much more lethal. before he was captured, when he first joined al qaeda, they were killing dozens at a time. as soon as he got into senior leadership, they began killing hundreds and then thousands at a time. after he was captured in march 2003, the lethality of al qaeda fell. this is a guy that really mattered and understanding him is about understanding the future of the war on terror. now that bin laden is dead, this is what we have to fear, the terrorist entrepreneurs like khalid sheikh mohammed. host: when did you start this book? guest: about two years ago. the question had been on my mind since 9/11, how do people become terrorists. educated, successful people at the top of their society. 2/3 of al qaeda are college graduates with advanced degrees so they're the best from their society from an educational point of view.

how do these people become transformed, what series of choices do they make to become terrorists, to kill hundreds of thousands of other people. that was the question i was interested in and instead of doing a social logical track, i decided to look at one man, khalid sheikh mohammed, who do the 9/11 bombings, the attack of the cole, the bali bombings and so on. >> did he kill with his own hands dan pearl? >> yes, "wall street journal" reported that daniel pearl was killed by khalid sheikh mohammed and i learned that one of the main reasons he did it had nothing to do with ideology. after 9/11, he was holed up in pakistan and he had a new nickname inside al qaeda, k.f.c., kentucky fried chicken. he ate buckets of the stuff and ballooned up from 140 pounds, at 5'4", to more than 200 pounds. so there was a lot of ribbing inside al qaeda about the fact

that he was the -- he was like jabba the hut like girth. he was not deadly, he thought. when he heard about the "wall street journal" reporter being kidnapped, he bought him from his captor and brought a film crew to where he was being held and personally cut off his head. he did it for ego and pride and to show he was tough. >> it took me a while but i found the video on the web. it doesn't hit you right away when i tried to find it. i read that somewhere, this georgetown group, the students that studied the whole murder, found, i guess they found information, maybe you found the information, comparing the veins in his hand to khalid sheikh mohammed. first of all where, is he today? >> khalid sheikh mohammed is now in camp seven at guantanamo. >> and when did they prove he was the murderer?

i don't mean the georgetown kids, but when did the government prove that? >> technically the government hasn't proved it. they're still ongoing charges and he hasn't faced trial yet. >> has he admitted it? >> he has admitted it repeatedly and the video on the web compares his veins in his hands to the killer's knife. there are also larger videos that were seen in the middle east that show more of the outtakes and stuff and khalid sheikh mohammed is clearly all over it. >> want to put his picture, a picture everybody has probably seen. where was that picture taken and when? >> that picture was taken the night he was captured in late february, early march, 2003. he was staying at the home of a prominent microbiologist, famous guy in pakistan. his wife was -- the microbiologist's wife was the head of the largest political party in pakistan and he was asleep in a spare bedroom at 2:00 a.m. when c.i.a., paramilitary, special forces and

pakistanis burst in on him. >> where is he today? >> and today he's at camp seven in guantanamo bay, cuba, under the protection of the u.s. navy. >> i have to tell you that the most interesting chapter in this book to me was his north carolina experience. if you don't mind, i'd like to get you to talk about that. >> i'd be happy to. >> when did he come to this country first? his first trip to the united states is 1984 and he really didn't understand much about our country. the -- i talked to the man who picked him up from the airport. and one of the things he remembers -- this is the dean of the college in murfreesboro, north carolina, is him looking out the window and being surprised to see people sitting on their front lawn. that doesn't happen in the middle east. in the middle east, people are behind walls and windows are

small but the idea of sitting in the sunshine in front of a major highway is something you see all over the american south, just struck him as bizarre. and of course, the greenery, the lushness of the country, the fact that poor people, rich people, people of all classes have trees and grass was very from what he experienced in kuwait so the environment was different and the culture was very different. >> where was he born? >> he was born in kuwait, outside of kuwait city in kuwait. >> parents, what did they do? >> his parents came from the mountains of iran in a region called balchastan. their land is divided into afghanistan, iran and pakistan and they've fought the leaders of all three of those countries at different times trying to get independence. his father came in 1950, i think, or 1951, to kuwait. the records are sparse on this. and his mother followed shortly thereafter. they had a number of children,

least four in front of khalid sheikh mohammed. his father died when he was very young and there was no welfare at the time in the 1960's and 1970's in kuwait so his mother had to take any job she could get so she washed the bodies of the dead before burial. >> why did he come to north carolina to the college. why did he come? >> he came for two reasons. one was that the english language standards were lax and his english was poor. he was very good at science and math but his english wasn't up to par so he looked for a college with a weak entrance exam. if you look at the pattern of arab foreign students, they're different from other kinds of foreign students such as indians or japanese or what have you. arabs tend to follow social networks much more than other foreign students so the fact that a few other arabs had gone there, people he had been related to or knew of had been there before made a big

to him.ce >> you talk in your book about the muslim community in north carolina. why, back in 1984, were there with muslims?ies >> there were transfer students, quite a few, and then there were some arabs that fled the lebanese involve war or other developments in the arab world and settled in north carolina. there was also a great demand for technical jobs in the research triangle area that drew some of them in, as well. >> how much of a muslim follower was he in those days? >> apparently very severe. he would go to burger king and burgers without the meat and make a show of eating it without the meat and you would ask him why and he would say i can't be sure the beef was prepared to islamic standards of purity. he was part of a group known as the mullah telling other foreign students not to wear shorts, not to cover their ankle with socks, all of these fine points of dress and behavior.

obviously, no alcohol, no pork. >> it's a southern baptist school, still is. why would someone who is a muslim and religious, come to a baptist school? >> affordable tuition, other arabs had been there before, and lax english requirements. about a quarter of his class was foreign. so maybe it was a little easier for him to fit in. the interesting thing and i can't find anybody to give me a good account of this, he was required to attend chapel and that was mostly a lecture and sometimes music. he was supposed to attend chapel with the other students. according to records, he did so, but he never objected. i looked at a number of former classmates and professors, anyone who might have a recollection but no one remembers him objecting. >> here's a picture of a man you met down there. what's his name? >> that's garth. there he is in his classroom where he's taught for more than

30 years. >> did you take that picture? >> i think i did. yes, i did. >> when did you meet him and what did you learn from him? >> garth vale taught chemistry and taught khalid sheikh mohammed and is the only professor there that has a vivid memory of khalid sheikh mohammed. very organized man. he teaches in a suit. he was professor of the year last year and interesting, devoted man, leading a careful life that's affecting hundreds of students a year. >> what's he remember from khalid sheikh mohammed? >> he remembers him as a good student who had very poor english. he never had any political discussions with him or religious debates, for that matter. it was -- but he remembers him as someone with a very orderly mind and unfortunately, an orderly mind can be put to good or evil and in this kiss, it was

put to evil. >> how big is he? >> he's about 5'4" and i don't know what his current weight is but he gets double meals at guantanamo so i'm assuming he's in the 200-pound range. >> when you went to the school, what else did you do while you were there? did you find anybody else that had heard of him? >> it was hard. i went through the school library and went through the year books. he was invisible in the yearbooks. i talked to other professors, i talked to deans. the dean that picked him up from the airport, i saw him in another city in north carolina. and it's interesting. the school made a budgetary choice. they were running short of students. they were really financially in jeopardy. and so they began admitting more foreign students thinking they have to give them as much aid but ultimately i think it started to change the character of the college, in some good ways and in some bad ones. >> you say in your book that he

paid his tuition several months before he got there. was that unusual? >> as a reporter, one of my instincts is to follow the money and he -- so i went and looked and got some extraordinary access from the school, i must say, to look at the financial records, and that's when i discovered that he paid in advance for an entire semester's tuition, a month before he arrived. also, his visa application, which the college had a copy of, mentions a private sponsor but there's no idea who that private sponsor must be. his family was so poor in kuwait, they didn't have a telephone. they didn't have a rich uncle so it makes you wonder who the private sponsor might be. how long did he stay at the school? >> one semester. >> then what? >> he transferred to north carolina a&t, the alma mater of jesse jackson and ronald mcnair, the astronaut. >> how long did he stay there? >> he graduated in may or june

1986 with a degree in engineering, about three years. >> what did he study? >> engineering but he also took chemistry and other hard sciences. >> did you find anyone there who remembered him? >> i found a number of people who did, some spoke on and off the record. the former muslim students who are now professionals in the area had the most vivid memory of him. they remember him as a comedian. he loved something called the friday tonight show where he would be a cast member in this informal student group where he would be a stand-up comic and do routines impersonating arab leaders and personalities. he was very popular. you talked to an imam. was that off the record? >> it was very security purposes. there's a lot of hesitation for them to talk outside of their community and the repercussions that might be. i must say, having spent a lot of time with this imam, if he

would be public, he could be a bridge of understanding, someone who understands both american life and islam could be beneficial to the country. >> what else did you learn from him? >> i learned a lot about the interior life of khalid sheikh mohammed and about his family. this imam had spent a lot of time with him and with his extended family, knew him both from kuwait days and as a student, and had an idea of the intellectual forces shaping k.s.m. and i learned of his driving record. khalid sheikh mohammed was a terrible driver, drove with an expired license, often drove at high speed and smashed into parked cars. in one car, two women were talking when khalid sheikh mohammed's car smashed into theirs. the women were badly injured and they sued for their medical costs. their last name was christian, his is mohammad. the lawsuit in north carolina court records is "christian v.

mohammad," 1985. >> a paragraph in your book. america would be good to k.s.m. in return, he would use college years to make alliances he would need in future terrorist attacks plot his first assassination on american soil which will be discussed here for the first time. what are you discussing for the first time? >> the murder of miher makam. he was a zionist and was very outspoken, very pro-israel and called for the palestinian arabs to leave gaza and the west bank and the land that was biblically israel's today. it was not a map stream position but he founded the jewish defense league and in 1986 he spoke in greensboro, north carolina, at north carolina a&t and that speech was seen by khalid sheikh mohammed and it outraged him because this is

someone who had a diametrically opposed point of view. k.s.m. often lied and said he had a palestinian connection but in his genealogy, there is no connection but most of the students and teachers he had in kuwait were palestinian and the social world in the muslim brotherhood in kuwait was primarily palestinian so he identified strongly with the p.l.o. and black september and the radical groups of the 1970's so when he heard the alternate point of view, and for k.s.m., the problem is not that people disagree, the problem is that alternate point of views exist. be a single unified view, and unsurprisingly, it's his. so he plotted to kill kahan. there's a stray mention of this, a one-line mention of this buried in a footnote of the 9/11 commission report in that he claimed he had killed kahan or had kahan killed and that the

c.i.a. didn't believe him. but when you look into it, you discover they didn't investigate it very hard. when you look at the case in detail, you see that the entire cell that was used, the getaway driver, the gunman, so on, that was used in the assassination of kahan was later reused in khalid sheikh mohammed's attack on the world trade center in february 1993. >> going back to that point. where was kahan shot? >> in new york city in 1990. >> in what hotel? >> oh, wow. >> marriott east. >> that's right. >> the reason i ask you that, the whole scenario after that of the cab waiting outside the hotel and -- k.s.m. did not shoot him. >> that's right, he didn't. >> who did he get to shoot him? >> i believe he got al-sied nasar to kill him. it wasn't his first attempt at

murder. his first attempt of murder was at a gay bar in greenwich village. he was a new york city sanitation worker, immigrant to the united states, who worked with the sanitation department and was ultimately fired because he kept bothering other workers, trying to persuade them to embrace islam as their religion and became further radicalized, attacked the gay bar, and was brought into the cell and was the gunman, the one who shot, twice, i think, kahan. >> and kahan died there an hour later? >> he was taken to the hospital and after being wounded and died in surgery. >> but when asir walked out of the hotel, the cab driver -- the cab driver is the connection to the 1993 -- >> one of the connections to the 1993 world trade center bombing. that's right. the cab driver was waiting for him and he gets into the wrong cab and starts barking orders and this is new york. the cabbie just turns around and barks right back so he bolts out

of the cab, where he runs into an armed postal inspector and they shoot it out and ultimately nasir is taken to the same hospital as kahan. >> where's nasir today? >> i believe he's still in jail. he was retried on some of these counts or tried in a different way, but for some of the same facts, i should say, in 1995 and is still convicted. i believe he's in hsing hsing. >> what's the connection to 1993 world trade center bombing? >> the world trade center bombing, the bombers issued demands after the bombing and the first of those demands was the release of nasir from prison. that's one connection. the second connection is the cab driver in the shooting of kahan, drove the getaway car for the world trade center. another figure who videotaped the murder of kahan as a member -- posing as a member of the audience, was part of a bomb

plot for the world trade center and there are several other personalities directly involved in both. >> ramzi yousef. what's his role in all of this? >> ramzi yousef is not involved in the kahan murder but he built the bomb. he's the cousin and that's one of the critical friendships or relationships that defines k.s.m.'s life, his cousin, three years younger, grew up as best friends but with an unequal relationship. >> where is ramzi yousef today? >> he's in jail in colorado. >> go back to the north carolina experience for k.s.m. what happened to him in his time down there and how many years it was total? i believe it's a total of 3 1/2, almost four years. >> you talk about their hatred for israel but how much of this is hatred for the united states or hatred for israel or hatred because the united states supports israel?

>> a lot of it, more than i expected, is because the united states supports israel. in the 1980's in north carolina it would not be hard for k.s.m. to meet ordinary americans who admired israel as the only middle eastern democracy, as a place that many churches take people for historical and religious visits. and so, you know, israel is generally admired and i think this came as a great shock to him. in that court case that i mentioned, christian v. mohammad, he tracked down their lawyer, steven j. teague, and visited him in his offices and lectured him about israel and palestine, about the iran-iraq war and so on and clearly he thought americans were misinformed about israel and that was a motivator. later, when he talked to his high school principal and i think i quote that in that chapter, it was america's views of israel and support of israel that initially made him anti-american but he didn't like the way we lived. he didn't like the freedom, he

didn't like the equality between men and women, he didn't like the openness, the casualness of american society where people would sit out in public and have conversations with people who would walk by. this casualness for some reason really bothered him. >> i'm not sure how to ask this but i'll ramble a little bit. he comes over to the united states to be in our educational system, the education system welcomes foreign visitors. is this what we get for it? >> well, sometimes. and i'm always looking for the dog that doesn't bark. if you look at -- and this is not the only case of a student who comes to america and becomes radicalized and joins al qaeda let alone other terrorist groups. but i'm not aware of any case of someone going to a military college, either a public one like west point or annapolis or a private one like valley forge or the citadel, who becomes radicalized.

and i think the difference is, the way we deal with students. in military colleges, you're integrated into a larger unit. yes, there are enormous individual demands on you but they're really forming unit cohesion, you're part of a group from the beginning. and that's really important. in american public colleges, nonmilitary colleges, civilian colleges, it's sink or swim. once they admit you to the college, show you where the library and cafeteria are, you're on your own. so if you don't form a good relationship with your dorm mate, if you find it hard to deal with other students, it's just your tough luck. and i think that's alienating, especially to a lot of foreign students and remember the 9/11 hijackers in the rental car, the f.b.i. found a notebook the difference between conditioner, shampoo and body wash in arabic. we forget how much people coming from a different culture don't

necessarily know about our own. we assume that everything about our culture is universal and easy to understand because it is for us. and so, i think college administrators don't recognize how hard it is for these guys to make the switch. i think they really need to improve orientation and improve the way in which they deal with foreign students. >> i want to put back on the screen the picture, a couple of pictures, because you have on the front of your book three different pictures. we'll go back to -- you can see the cover of your book. it's the same man. >> yes. >> what was he doing in those different worlds? was it a disguise? >> he's a master of disguise. he knew how to change himself. he had more than 50 different identities. i have a list of confirmed aliases in the back of the book. that's one of the interesting things throughout the 1990's, he slips his way through various countries. >> where was this picture taken and how old is it? >> that's the most recent picture of khalid sheikh mohammed. that was taken in guantanamo a

few years ago. here's an interesting thing. he said, for many years khalid sheikh mohammed said it was unislammic to take pictures of living things and in this picture he spent hours and hours posing for the red cross photographer to take that picture at guantanamo. >> did he know what he was doing? >> absolutely. >> why would the red cross help him in this process? >> well, that's a very good question. i guess the official answer, which i was told, that was it's -- in order to ensure the family of the detainees that the detainees are being well treated, they would take photographs of them but the propaganda value of the photo was enormous and within days of the family receiving the photo it was on al qaeda web sites around the world. >> let's go back over -- >> and the "new york times" shortly after. >> let's go over what khalid sheikh mohammed has done and how much of this has been proved. >> i don't think there's any

great doubt about his role in most of these although there are questions about some of the operations. he came up with the idea for 9/11. he recruited the team. he supervised the process. >> from where? >> from afghanistan and pakistan, from inside al qaeda. i mean, obviously bin laden had a role both funding and shaping the operation. but 9/11 is very much the creation of a single man and that man is khalid sheikh mohammed. >> how do we know that? >> we know this from other detainees, from internal documents in al qaeda. of course, khalid sheikh mohammed says it. no one disputes it. he's given a tremendous amount of respect in guantanamo by the other detainees because his role in the attacks is very well acknowledged. >> what did he have to do with the 1993 attack on the world trade center? >> he arranged for the money and may have masterminded that attack, as well. his cousin, ramsey ramzi youseft to new york to organize that

cell and then to build that bomb in a warehouse called the space station warehouse across the river from lower manhattan and then delivered the bomb, killing seven people. >> what was the scheme that you write about where he was going to pilot one of the planes and land it? >> this is one of the funny details i learned about 9/11. in one of the initial -- the plan went through a number of changes between 1998 and 2001. in the early stages, they wanted to hijack 11 planes and one of them would be piloted by khalid sheikh mohammed himself, and he would kill all the men, land the plane, release the women and children, hold a press conference and then fly off into the sunset in a passenger jet. really like the plot of a bad movie. obviously, bin laden vetoed this idea. he arrested? >> he was arrested in march 2003. >> by? >> by a combination of u.s. c.i.a. and special forces and pakistani special forces. >> how did they find him? >> they got lucky.

a walk-in, which is an intelligence term for someone who volunteers and comes by the embassy and says, i've got something you should know. these people are usually not welcomed with open arms but if they pass a number of tests, taken seriously. in this case, a man walked in and said he was with k.s.m. and would be with k.s.m. later that night. that really got the attention of the c.i.a. because informants don'ttially suggest they're going to see the key subject in a few hours. they say, well, it will be a few weeks or months, they're hoping to get money out of it. he did want the reward. the reward? >> at the time i think it was $5 million. i could be wrong about that. he gets the phone number from this -- one of the c.i.a. operatives in islamabad, pakistan, and remember, islamabad is the largest c.i.a. station in the world. that's where we spend the majority of our energy fighting

al qaeda, and 2/3 of all al qaeda in the world, senior al qaeda who have been killed or been killed or captured in pakistan, more than afghanistan and iraq combined, so it's party central for al qaeda. so he gets his cell phone number and a few hours later, about 11:00 at night, he goes to the bathroom of a restaurant and texts the c.i.a. officer he met earlier that day and says, i am with k.s.m. and they meet up a few hours later and they said he's just dropped k.s.m. off. he can't remember the address of the house. i mean, it's not like many parts of the united states where they write address number on the curb. >> this is the one with the picture you have in the book? >> i think so, yes. >> 18-a nissan road, raul pindi. >> which is just south of islamabad in the mountains. that's a very prosperous

neighborhood, the equivalent of beverly hills. >> had you been to that house? >> not to the house, but i've been to raul pindi. >> what did they do once they captured him? >> he was taken to a series of secret prisons. it's hard to document what was going on in that period between 2003 and 2006 when he was transferred to guantanamo. it appears he spent time in romania and bangkok and c.i.a. secret facility out of war secret facility. >> why would they have moved him around that much? >> you can only have someone as a guest for so long. also, sometimes changing people's environment gets them moving. there may be other detainees that they want to cross-examine and put him with. >> this is 2011. how old is he today? >> he was born in 1964.

i am a writer, not a mathematician. >> how would that have made him iwhen he planned the attack. he was 37 years old. >> part of the inspiration for 9/11 is the science fiction movie "independence day." if flying saucer burns up the trade center. >> all you keep telling us is that what we were afraid of -- all of his ideas were based on the way we live. >> that is right. our lifestyle, our movies. >> and the relentless criticism about america that he learned in college. he thought, if there critical in this country, there must be

really bad. -- they must be really bad. >> how did you personally go about collecting all of this information? where did you go besides north carolina? >> i would to north africa, to various places in the middle east. then i talked with a number of european intelligence services, especially about his time in bosnia, with french intelligence and british intelligence and the german equivalent of the fbi. >> what do you think is new in this book? we already established that the north carolina thing was so much -- >> your had criminal record in the united states. he played an active role and worked for iran in bosnia carrying out attacks is new. >> how was he on that? >> that was in 1983 and 1984.

that is new. his time at guantanamo, i think that has gotten a lot of attention. >> how did you get that? >> talking with a number of current and former navy and cia personnel who had direct access. >> how classified is his time there? >> fairly classified. one of the great frustrations -- it is like writing the biography of a dead person in that i could not talk to him give the u.s. government would now -- would not allow him any interviews. he is in the segregated section at gitmo. there's another guy who is a nephew of his who worked for him. none of these people are available for interview.

usually, when writing about a person the you cannot contact, the people around him will talk more freely because he is not around to offer his opinion on what they have to say. but when you're writing a book about like this, you cannot talk to and, but is not dead, you have to be careful what they say. they are still worried about the ongoing relationship that they have, even that 10 years or 15 years or 20 years after north carolina. people are still concerned about -- one person said, who knew him in college, do not say that he was a terrorist. that might hurt his feelings. >> and many people did you talk to that actually knew him? >> a couple dozen. >> what would they say about his brain power? >> he was very smart. education is not the solution to terrorism. many of these guys are very

educated. what is lacking is empathy, the ability to put themselves in another person's place, and the ability to space ideas, different ideas about politics. the idea that there's no one answered these, but that it can be debated, that is enforced. they were forced to meet lots of different ideas. even if they were forced to debate ideas that they did not themselves believe in just to get used to the practice might be very useful. it might be radicalized -- it might deradicalilze them. >> what about torture? >> i do not think waterboarding is torture. thousands of people have gone through that in military training facilities. back to a more classical treaty definition of torture is a permanent and irreversible change in a person's well-being.

when the chinese garment lops off your arm or extracts a healthy tooth without painkillers, that is torture. when the u.s. government puts the toll on your face and slowly pour water on it while you are in a position, that is uncomfortable. it is stressful. it might even feel like you're drowning. but it does not leave a mark. it does not leave permanent physical damage. there have been psychological studies from veterans who have gone through this in various training groups and it leaves no trace at all. but it does get cooperation from the very hard cases. >> when was he waterboarded? >> in march 2003. >> where? >> that is an interesting question. i do not know the answer to that. i do not know if that has been reported. i doubt that. >> a lot of folks in the public eye figure that he was waterboarded a hundred sometimes.

is that in one day? >> that is three sessions in a relatively short amount of time. 183 was the number of how many times water was poured on the face. when people say that he was waterboarded 183 times, that is a cute. >> it is interesting that we have those facts. >> that is an illegal document from the cia. -- that is in a legal document from the cia. the cia has come out with fever map from world war ii. let's widen the frame. let's look at the bureaucratic process. when you water board someone, there is a doctor in the room at all time. there's also a translator. there are other personal standing by in the room. if anything search to go wrong, the process can be stopped and the person can be saved. there are a lot of safeguards in

effect. people who do the waterboarding have been waterboarded themselves. they know what they are -- the stress they are putting someone threw. >> does the person being waterboarded know that there is some doctors in the room and others? >> it is impossible to know. >> did ksm have a family? >> yes. he has a wife is fighting in iran. and he has a number of children, at least two sons and possibly two daughters. >> how is he kept in guantanamo? >> he is kept with four or five other high-value detainee is connected to 9/11 and is part of a slightly larger group of 15 to 16 very high-value detainees. >> have they stopped talking to him at this point or are they

still questioning him? >> he is still questioned. he is still shown drawings and other documents and asked about a name and that kind of thing. but the time of intense questioning is over. partly, it is for political scenreasons. a lot of people say that waterboarding is sort terrible. they will say anything to make it stop. when the water board you, they're not asking that many questions. and the questions they ask your once they know the answer to. they want to test your your veracity, your willingness to tell the truth. there is no possibility to fake information. if you give that information, there are punishments. you are denied food and books to read. >> have you ever gone through that, waterboarding? >> i have tried to. for legal reasons, people do not want to water board me.

>> what kind of information has come out of ksm that is valuable? >> they are arleta plots based on direct information from him. on the u.s. and food -- the attack on the u.s. embassy in paris, in singapore, and the capital of mali, and off the streets of gibraltar, on the brooklyn bridge, the seattle's space needle, the library tower in downtown los angeles, which was also blown up on the independence day, the attack on the empire state building, the baltimore city plot of gas stations to be blown up in baltimore -- ksm's sister-in- law was involved in that. there are more. just because things have not exploded or made headlines of

carnage, it does not mean they have stopped trying. the issue bomber plot, the paris-miami flight, that was stopped partly by information from ksm. the jose could be a dirty bomb was another one. >> -- the jose padilla dirty bomb was another one. >> where did he meet osama? >> they did not know each other in the early 1990's. they had their first sit-down meeting in 1995 in kandahar near neerar bins -- laden's ranch. they did not get along particularly well. he wanted to go to work for al

qaeda. he had a wife and some children. he was broke. and much of his cell which carried out or iattended attacks in the philippines and elsewhere, he was at the end of history. his wife was basically telling him to get a job. ultimately, he went to work for al qaeda. >> where was he position and how did he put together 9/11? in what location? >> in various cities in pakistan and afghanistan. he moved freely in all of those cities. he seemed to prefer karachi and he had a number of relatives living there. this is one of the things and get into in the book. for them, -- for al qaeda, it was really a management problem. people were quitting and flying home or threatening to quit. people were getting in trouble

with the law. there were at least 13 listing opportunities to have stopped the 9/11 plot in different points in 2000 to 2001. one was pulled over by a maryland state trooper and so on. from an operational or management point of view, it was a nightmare for them. unfortunate, they succeeded and it was a nightmare for us. >> where did the money come from? >> that is a great question. some of it comes from islamic charities and oil sheikhs. >> where they doing it? >> idealism -- an ideological conditioning. there is a fantasy that exists in the minds of many educated people, both in the west and in the arab world and in asia that commit to do something shocking enough, radical enough, that human nature will suddenly change. the same thing led to the 1960's protest, the paris takeover in

1968, and all of this. that human nature will suddenly change and new ideas would be born. that's sort of the idealistic vision of terrorism. and they could come to seize power by instilling fear in people and controlling them. >> how much saudi arabian money is in all of this? >> i do not know. but i am sure it is a non-zero number. 15 of the hijackers were from saudi arabia simply because the u.s. state department had a special program with saudi arabia. they did not have this with any other nation on earth. you did not have to go into the consulate or the embassy and look for the consulate affairs office and fill out forms and showed it vacation. instead, that could be done by a travel agent. it would be mailed to the embassy. it was much easier to get a u.s.

travel visa from saudi then from great britain. it was much easier than any other arab country. while some of these requests from yemen and egypt and elsewhere were denied, all the saudi ones were granted. >> you keep telling us is our own fault by these special deals and the need to attract people from other countries and providing easy access to colleges. do we need to reexamine the way we look at the rest of the world? >> i think we do. i am not one of these people who are paranoid about things overseas, but we need to be realistic. we need to think -- we need to rethink the college experience. life here getz explained in a comprehensive way. civilian colleges can learn from military colleges. i think also need to look at what students we're letting in. at the time he was admitted to

study in north carolina, he had been a member of the muslim brotherhood for two years, maybe two and a half years, in kuwait. why are we letting in to study in the united states people connected to the muslim brotherhood or other extremist organizations? i do not want neo-nazi's sitting here either. do more background checks on the students. many universities are dependent on the estimate it coming from and to do injured -- from international students. it would be a fight, but it is one worth having. the saudis and beneficial to a lot of business interests in the united states. -- the saudis are beneficial to a lot of business interests in the united states. the two nations at the top have been very close for close to 70

years. it is a unique relationship, one that has never been studied honestly. and they have complained enormously for why they're not treated the same way, people from western europe are treated. before 9/11, there was a visa waiver where, if you were a citizen of the united kingdom or germany or ireland, you could just fly into the united states and show your passport and enter without a visa. the arabs did not get the same treatment. that is something that the saudis complained about bitterly, that they had to wait in line with third world people whereas a british secretary could just show a passport. this was an attempt to give them some of the same privileges that western europeans and australians have. >> what has been the hardest part of you trying to write this book? >> the gaps.

i certainly knew who to talk to and some of the people to talk to. the cia secret prison. but because the lawsuit by the aclu and other liberal groups and the u.s. government, the u.s. department of justice under eric holder, they are prosecuting cia interrogators. they're not willing to talk. anything they say can be used against them in court. it damages not allow their liberties, but their homes and their pensions. they're in great legal jeopardy. that leads people to only tell part of the sorrier to say nothing at all. -- part of the story or to say nothing at all. just a few weeks ago, he drop the case against thomas tam.

he violated, apparently, the law. he had security clearance. these were securing classified documents. he gave them to a non-cleared personnel who he knew would publish it and read -- would publish it, and reporter for "the new york times." the attorney-general, for some reason, decided to drop the case. he may thought that the war on terror and the bush era is over and they would like to let this go into the night. and that is, why not let the cia officers though, too? what put them in legal jeopardy? >> did u.s. about -- did you ask about colleague sheikh mohammed?

>> if you believe the geneva convention applied to people who were part of organizations that are not signatories to the geneva convention, then opening of a prisoner to public visits is a violation of geneva. you cannot treat people who are being held in combat, prisoners of war, has channels and a zoo. -- as animals in a zoo. there was this sort of lingering legal concern. also, it is a secure place. a lot of the layout and who is involved is classified. >> on your cover, it says author of "losing been lavin, the shuttle were." one was that written? >> -- "muezzin been laid i --

"losing bin laden, the shadow war." when was that written? >> there are a lot of secrets that died with osama bin laden -- sleeper cells, but governments are supplying al qaeda with money, why, and one of the names of the officials? what are the plots that are pending? all of that information was in his head. we could have used a few weeks to swoop down and surprised some al qaeda elements around the world before we announced his death. >> we have not seen you since a couple of years ago when your haiere. you have been made the direct

role editor of "the washington times" and it's sort of blew up. has that been resolved? >> that case is settled. there has been a payment. i am governed by a confidentiality clause. i can say a few things. it was an exciting adventure. >> explain to somebody that does not have any idea what we're talking about. a the "washington *" is conservative paper here in washington, d.c. i came here to remake the editorial segment. we were not drawn the contention we wanted to. we changed the layout design, both the website and the print pages. and we sort of changed the content. your opinion does not work. but reporting mixed opinion, it

is even to this story and tell you what to think about it, a model similar to that "the wall street journal." we were working diligent in that area and seeing great success. we save about $1 million in costs by -- by reorganizing things. traffic is growing rapidly. then there was a fight for control among the sons of the owner of the newspaper and that ended up pushing out about 70% of the staff. i was one of the first to go. >> and you left when? >> and left in october 2009. >> i found on the web a charge of discrimination that you signed. the reason i bring it up is because you know, over the years in this town, "the post's" has

done this as much as anybody. they want to point the finger at the owner as if he was influencing editorial judgment. you talk about having to go to a unification church event in new york. were you told you had to go that -- and to that if you're going to work there? >> yes. i was made to realize that if i did not go by prospects would begin. >> you said you were episcopalian and you did not want to go to the unification church. >> i am a devoted christian. i was not interested in joining their church. many wonderful people there. i like many of them personally. but i found the whole ceremony revolting. there are elements of the ceremony there are insulting to christianity, to jayson, and to islam because they have someone

judaism, and to duties o islam because they one someone present to represent each and they have a ceremony that is a unification of all three. they also had mass weddings. >> did you go? >> yes. >> what did you go? >> i wanted an opportunity to remake the pages of "the washington times." i was surprised how spiritually dangers unfounded. >> -- dangers i found it. -- spiritually dangerous i found

it. for about a year or so, they limited the sports section. there were persistent rumors about bankruptcy. now it seems that they have reconnected with the owner and the money is flowing again and they are rehiring people. i wish them success. >> vassar college, you graduated from there. you work for the wall street journal. you work for "the american spectator." >> i work for competitive enterprise institute in the 1990's. i was a number -- a member of the investigative team of "the london times." >> and how many books you have? >> this is the fifth book. >> you have another one in the

drawing board already? >> not yet. the next one may be a bit of a thriller. >> the name of this book is " masterminds." our guest has been richard miniter. >> my brother frank is the editor of the "executive hunter" magazine. i see him once a month and he brags about his global exportlos hunting. we have a busy family. >> thank you. >> thank you.

>> for a dvd copy of this program, call 1-877-662-7726. for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q-anda.org. >> next, british prime minister david cameron at the house of commons. at 11:00 p.m., another chance to see "q&a" with richard miniter. tomorrow, fiscal times washington editor eric pianin explains the the debt ceiling and what action to expect from

congress, the u.s. treasury, and the obama administration. then we have guessed from the peterson institute who talk about reaching a -- to talk about how reaching the debt ceiling could affect our global standing. making the carter examines the way the dhs test for airline security. "washington journal" is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> next, prime minister's questions from the british house of commons. one year after forming a coalition year met with the liberal democrats, british prime mr david cameron defended his government's position on reforming the national health service and reducing the debt. members also asked the prime mr. questions on cyber security, support for military families, and cuts for monday emergency services. this is just