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The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

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Lawrence Wright has written an utterly absorbing book that will both captivate and appall you, and not just because of his recounting of the breathtaking horrors that took place on September 11, 2001. Equally appalling is Wright's depiction of the entrenched bureaucrats at the CIA, FBI and the National Security Agency, who failed to share crucial information with one another because of petty personal differences and agency cultures that value conformity above true investigative ability. Had the CIA, in particular, released information regarding the whereabouts of several individuals who ultimately participated in the 9-11 attacks, those tragedies might well have been prevented.

Reading these things was deeply painful for me, who watched the Trade Towers collapse as I sped across Queens trying to get home to my family in Brooklyn Heights. I can only imagine how distressing this experience might be to those who lost friends and loved ones in the attacks that day. Yet Wright has handled this difficult material in a way that makes it bearable to read, and his pacing of the story is masterful. The Looming Tower reads like a suspense novel at times and the writing is lyrical.

The book is also chock full of pertinent facts and background material that help make sense, insofar as that is even possible, of the motivations of the terrorists. I have never seen logic in the tactics of al Qaeda and similar groups, but this book has helped me understand that logic is not the driving force. Rather it seems to be history, the pursuit of a tribal conception of "honor" and a desire to recreate past glory that is far more important than logic. Wright connects those dots to paint a picture of the "terrorist" that is far more three-dimensional than the one that Bush Administration officials and the media have given us.

There are also a number of oddball facts and anecdotes that enliven The Looming Tower and add to its interest. For example, Wright relates a tidbit that highlights the so-called "clash of cultures" better than anything I've read to date: "[Jamal al-Fadl] would become al-Qaeda's first traitor. He offered to sell his story to various intelligence agencies in the Middle East, including the Israelis. He eventually found a buyer when he walked into the American Embassy in Eritrea in June 1996. In return for nearly $1 million, he became a government witness. While in protective custody, he won the New Jersey Lottery."

There are lots of other gems in this book, including some nearly unbelievable tales about John O'Neill, who would be the hero (or perhaps anti-hero) of Wright's book, if it had a hero, which it doesn't. You should really buy The Looming Tower right away and read it for yourself.

In Lawrence Wright's masterpiece The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, he effortlessly connects disparate puzzle pieces of our current clash with Islamofascism with a coherent, page-turning narrative that at time reads like a Robert Ludlum suspense novel. He begins with FBI operative Dan Coleman who finds terrifying evidence in 1996 that there is an organization, Al-Qaeda, that is hell-bent on destroying America and spreading Islamofascism throughout the world. His superiors find Coleman's claims "too bizarre, too primitive and exotic" and fail to take action. In other words, the Western imagination cannot comprehend the Islamofascist mentality. It is Wright's objective to get inside, to the very core, of Al-Qaeda's chief figures and show us how they feel humiliated by the successes of the West, including Israel, and how this humiliation, plus a great deal of sexual repression, animates their obsession with becoming "martyrs for Allah." Lawrence Wright achieves his objective masterfully and leaves a terrifying, indelible imprint on the reader. Having read dozens of "9/11" books, I can say this is my favorite. The book succeeds for several reasons. First, it shows the failure of American imagination in dealing with terrorism. Second, Wright's narratives leading to 9/11 are effortlessly woven with concrete (never academic) psychological profiles of the seeds of Al-Qaeda: We see the fastidious, sexually repressed Egyptian anti-Semite religious scholar Sayyid Qutb as he navigates post World War II America. He is disgusted by our freedom and equality for women and his disgust radicalizes him so that he returns to Egypt to support a radical theocracy movement that thrives to this day. We see Bin Laden's number two man, Al-Zawahiri, one of Qutb's acolytes, a complex intellectual who consolidates all his brilliance and energies to become a cold-blooded killer. We see of course Bin Laden himself and the historical roots of his hatred for the West.

A complex, nuanced intelligent book, The Looming Tower does not demonize Islam. To the contrary, it shows that mainstream Islam has struggled against extremists spawned by the post World War II writings of militant Islam jihadist founder Sayyid Qutb.

What is most amazing about this book is that Wright's ability to get inside the head of a terrorist with the narrative speed of thriller novel allows us to comprehend the terrorist's motivations and to wake up from a deep sleep that has imperiled us.

I saw the author last night at a book signing/lecture, and wrote down some of his main points. I hope it is o.k. with him that I share them here, and what he said, because I found if very fascinating. Mr. Wright is a very intelligent, "gentle" man who obviously cares about things and people, and I found him very likeable, becuase he has a good sense of humor and he did so much research for this book, and travelled extensively. He said he interviewed over 1,000 people in the Arab world for this book.

Some of the main points of what he said:

- The Arabic world is incredibly insular. He said, if you take away oil, the entire Arab world, from Morocco to Pakistan, produces less economically than the Finnish company Nokia (Nokia has less than 8,000 employees). He said, there have been 10,000 books ever translated into Arabic. If you think about that in terms of how many rows of book stacks that would be at a bookstore, it is shocking (I calculate that to be a few stacks of books !). One single Borders in the U.S. thus contains far more books than have ever been translated by Arabic translators (Spain alone translates about 10,000 books a year). Thus, most Arabs are, for our standards, incredibly lacking in resources, to understand our world. Not only that, but their countries censor books and all media. Freedom to assemble basically does not exist in the Arab world, and thus, basic freedoms are lacking.

- There is "gender apartheid" in [most of] the Arab world (particularly Saudi Arabia). Women are mostly not seen in public in Saudi Arabia. Men know very little about women as a result (how to meet them ?). It is pathetic, how little young men know about women. (he said, in Saudi Arabia, the women secretaries at his reporting agency worked in a room below a stairwell, and were basically never seen. he said, you would see Saudi women so covered by a burka, that you could not tell which direction their face was pointing !).

- The author said, in discussion with Arab men, the opinions he expressed, they had never considered, and never heard of. He said, it was like if a martian came down and said things that no one had ever said before and that were new and shocking. And those are normal conversations in the West.

- The Islamists (Al Quida, Muslim Brotherhood, etc.) have no plan. They simply want to destroy things and "take over". But when asked what their economic plan is, they have none. The only real goal of the Muslim Brotherhood, for example, is the hijab for women (headcovering). Other than that, the muslim brotherhood has no plan or goal for society. "It is like an empty vessle". Bin Ladin has no plan other than wanting the U.S. out of Saudi Arabia, and blind destruction of things western. How do you deal with unemployment (no answer). Hamas is now in power in "Palestine", and has found that ruling is very hard. It shows them that they now must have a program, but they don't have one.

- Pakistan was "the most mysterious country" the author visited. Far from being unstable, it is "very, very stable", "too stable" ("eerily stable"). He said, the military "owns" Pakistan, and it is run by military families. If you are not in the military, you are basically locked out of Pakistani society. He said, they play a game with the U.S. called "find Bin Ladin". They constantly get paid by the U.S., and they pretend to look for Bin Ladin. It is all a game to get money from the U.S. He said, there is now a "permanent Al Quida zone" along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and it is very worrying.

- Our U.S. intelligence is basically incapable of dealing with Al Quida. The FBI is staffed by Irish and Italian men, who know those cultures. The Arab applicants are shut out as a "security risk". Result: no one who really speaks Arabic. The FBI recently graduated 50 new recruits. Only one of them speaks any foreign language. Since the 1970s, U.S. intelligence has been hamstrung and hollowed out. There is no "human intelligence" anymore. There is basically zero hope that the CIA and FBI can deal with Al Quida. Everyone in government realizes that the Dept. of Homeland Security is a joke.

- Clinton really tried to kill Bin Ladin, and should have fired his CIA director after he gave the CIA the order to kill Bin Ladin, and two years later, he was still alive.

- One thing that motivated Wolfowitz and Cheney is that they really believed that Iraq had a hand in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

- Iraq is a mess. Either way, Al Quida wins. If the U.S. withdrew, it would get much worse.

- Al Quida has very long-term plans, involving "drawing the U.S. in" to the Arab world. They would love it if we attacked Iran, because that would draw Iran in, and their "resources", into a world-wide fight.

- The author asked Islamic experts in the Arab world, "how will this conflict end". They mostly said that it is likely that the following will occur: a major western city were to be attacked by nuclear or biological weapon. Wright said, because we live in democracies, the public outcry would be so exterme and harsh, that a counterstrike, "attacking and destroying Mecca, Medina, and various targets in Iran" would be very, very likely, if not a foretold conclusion (!). (the CIA has even gone to Hollywood script writers to ask them for "scenarios", because they think that those scriptwriters "have more imagination" than bureaucrats at the CIA.

- The way to deal with Bin Ladin, if he were caught: try him before "Sharia courts". Take him to Kenya and Tanzania and make him confront the 150 Muslims who he blinded by the 1998 bomb blasts. Take him around and try him by sharia law. Take him to Saudi Arabia and ask for his execution. Make him look like he violated his own standards. Don't kill him, because then you make him a martyr.

Of all the books released this year, Lawrence Wright's exhaustively researched and extraordinarily well-written The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, is one of the few must read books of 2006. Taking a more forensic approach to the personalities that make up Al-Qaeda, Wright allows the audience a better understanding into just how these jihadists became the sick, twisted, corrupt men who called for war not just against the United States, but anyone who didn't share their fundamentalist views. Wright begins his analysis by examining the lives of the two main players, Al-Zawahiri and Bin Ladin. Exhaustively interviewing hundreds who came into contact with these men, Wright develops a highly detailed understanding of what motivates these men and how they developed their tafkiri fundamentalism. Tracing their actions from childhood through the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Wright lays out the trail of Al-Qaeda's development into a terror organization that first struck in Tanzania and Kenya and later in the United States.

Surprisingly, the vast amount of detail and the intricate webs of different factions and players does not slow the book down; no glossary or cast of characters is required. As time in the book moves closer towards September 2001, there is a perceptive quickening in pace until the planes hit the towers. 9/11 effectively ends the narrative on a dramatic note. Wright doesn't go into depth about the 9/11 hijackers, nor does he write an in-depth analysis of the Afghanistan War (the book ends with the escape of Al-Qaida into Pakistan after Tora Bora, and the US campaign in Afghanistan is a few pages at best). The Looming Tower is not a in-depth analysis of the policies of the US government, or the problems between the FBI and CIA, or even an attempt at understanding how Al-Qaida was able to hijack the planes and strike. The Looming Tower is more an analysis into why Zawahiri and bin Ladin decided to take action, and how men of relative privilege turned into sociopaths with an agenda so perverted that even those of their own religion denounce it. With its clear and crisp prose and its sharp eye for detail, The Looming Tower is an impressive book that should be read by anyone with an interest in the topic. One of the best books of 2006 and highly recommended.

A.G. Corwin
St.Louis, MO

There has been a numerous books published on the events concerning 9-11. Three of the best were published in 2002 : 1). "The Age of Sacred Terror" by Daniel Benjamin & Steve Simon; 2). "Out of the Blue" by Richard Bernstein; and 3). "The Cell" by John Miller. The first explored Islamic fundamentalism while the latter two examined the actual 9-11 plot and America's institutional failings. All three had the drawbacks of being "instant history." Mr. Wright has the advantages of five years perspective with more information available to him.

"The Looming Tower" follows the well-known facts of the 9-11 plot -- where it differs is in the amount of detail provided by his interviews and research in fleshing out the 9-11 plot. At nearly 500 pages, it is longer than most other 9-11 books but written in a readable, can't-put-it-down style. Mr. Wright presents the best portrait of the doomed FBI agent John O'Neill since "The Cell." This book is one to have on your bookshelf.

I work at a bookstore and see what seems like hundreds of "hard-hitting examinations" of 9/11; including events before, during and after the "tragedy". I put that word in quotations because a tragedy is someone being in a car accident or having a stroke. What happened on 9/11 was an unforgettable, scarring outrage. Having 5 years to take a step back and examine the big picture offers a lot of perspective. This book is by far the best I have read on the subject. I began thumbing through it and found myself unable to put it down. Mr. Wright introduces the major players and plots out the course of events in concise, readable fashion. The book doesn't point fingers as some of the more political books try to do, but simply states the facts and lets the reader digest what could have been done along this far-reaching timeline. No one person could have stopped or caused this, but it is amazing to see all the chips that fell directly into place for it to happen. May we take it, learn from previous mistakes, and move forward without forgetting.

"The Looming Tower" is about the building and concept of Al-Qaeda as a terror organization and the United States' efforts to stop it. The lives of Bin-Laden, Zawahiri, Prince Turki Faisal and FBI agent John O'Neill intersect in the book, which concludes with the September 11 attacks on the USA.

As the book flows, the reader travels through the life of Osama Bin-Laden (the central figure of the book) from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan during the war against the Soviets, the building of his criminal organization, and through an increasingly deadly series of terror acts. Meanwhile, US officials such as Richard Clarke and O'Neill are largely ignored by the Clinton and Bush administrations. Communication between CIA and FBI is hampered by bureaucracy. The attacks are carried out and the world is plunged into an age of terror.

"The Looming Tower" is well written and fast paced. The portrait of Bin-Laden is of a barbaric criminal who justifies his own depravity in hypocritical religious terms. The narrative about the bombing of the USS Cole places the matter in stark and understandable terms. This was a serious matter that was not addressed in the last three months of President Clinton's term nor in the first nine of Bush's. The flaw that I found with the book was the citing of flimsy sources late in the book that weren't backed up by more evidence, particularly the actions of Bin-Laden on 9-11 and in the days afterwards. There is a tabloid feel to the last few pages, which unfortunately, erodes the book's credibility. It's a good read. Take it with a grain of salt.

This is a terrific book for those seeking a better understanding of the rise of al-Qaeda and the important symbolism of bin Laden within the Muslim world. Wright spends the first third of the book discussing the rise of militant Islamic fundamentalism and attributing it to the Egyptian writer Sayyid Qtub, an interesting background missing from much of the discussion around this issue today. The rest of the book explores bin Laden's history and the FBI agent who was obsessed with catching him, John O'Neill. Had these two characters and their fates been written by LeCarre, a reader would have found it preposterous and far-fetched. The irony of O'Neill's retirement from the FBI in August of 2001, followed by his taking over the top security position for the World Trade Center the week of the 9/11 attacks is the stuff of tawdry spy novels. Wright does an excellent job of helping his readers understand the poor communications between the FBI and the CIA, with much -- although certainly not all -- of the fault lying with the agency. It would be nice and comforting to think that these systemic problems have been identified and corrected. It also would be foolish to do so.

I'm from the UK and although I've seen the atrocities of 9-11 on TV and mourned for those that suffered, until I read this book I don't think I truly understood what it was all about. Lawrence Wright must have started researching for this literally the day after 9-11, such is the enormous depth to which he has gone to uncover every ounce of information. No stone has been left unturned in the quest for truth. I purchased this book because I knew that I couldn't hold my own in a debate about terrorism, but I was unaware of just how little I knew. My eyes have been well and truly opened thanks to this book. I'd only been in the US for a few days when I picked it up, but if all US literature is this good then I'm applying for citizenship. This is totally absorbing from start to finish. Quite brilliant in fact.

"Wherever you are, death will find you, even in the looming tower" - from the 4th Sura of the Quran, spoken by Osama bin Laden on a videotaped speech found on a computer taken from the Hamburg, Germany al-Qaeda cell

Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntington News Network Book Critic

Hinton, WV - To employ the often useful - and truthful - cliché if you read only one book on Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda and Islamist terrorism, that book should be "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11" by New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright (Knopf, 480 pages, $27.95, illustrations, sources, cast of characters, bibliography, index).

About that back-of-the-book feature "Principal Characters": It's absolutely essential-- with all the Arab names in this book - to get them straight. More books should include them, as well as the voluminous notes, sources, persons interviewed, etc. in this exceptionally well documented book that immediately joins my short list of contenders for top prize books of 2006.

By telling the story of the spiritual father of bin Laden's form of Islamism, Sayyid Qutb, who studied in Greeley, CO in 1948, Wright places fundamentalist Islam in context. Qutb was a middle-class Egyptian who was both entranced and appalled by the diversity of America, where people of various nationalities and religions seemed to get along, albeit with much literal and physical jostling. Qutb traveled widely in the U.S. and was particularly entranced - and appalled - by the vitality of New York City, in sharp contrast to the decadence of Cairo in the last days of King Farouk's regime.

After discussing Qutb's variety of fundamentalist Islam and its influence on young Muslims of all nationalities - Qutb was hanged by Nasser in 1966 - Wright concentrates his narrative four individuals: Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri, the leaders of al-Qaeda (Arabic for "The Base") founded in Afghanistan in 1988 in the last days of the Soviet occupation; colorful FBI Agent John O'Neill, who died in the attack on the World Trade Center five years ago and Saudi Arabia's former head of intelligence, Prince Turki al-Faisal, who started out as ally of bin Laden and ended up as his bitter enemy after the Saudi millionaire declared jihad on the Saudi leaders. Most of the emphasis is on bin Laden and O'Neill.

If there's one thing that comes through clearly from "The Looming Tower," it's that the widely held belief that intelligence agencies hoard their scraps of intelligence like animals crowding around a downed prey animal, unwilling to share with anyone, is absolutely true. The rivalry between the Central Intelligence Agency and the FBI is particularly well-drawn by Wright, an indefatigable reporter and elegant writer.

O'Neill, was a working class guy from Atlantic City, NJ, who loved the New York metropolitan area. He dressed like a dapper Mafia don in Burberry pin-striped suits and expensive Italian shoes - in contrast to his cheap-suit-wearing colleagues - and tried to break down this great intelligence divide, often to the annoyance of his boss, FBI Director Louis Freeh. O'Neill, who was 50 when he died in the 9/11 attacks soon after his resignation and just into his new job as security director of the WTC, is wonderfully profiled by the New Yorker writer, which makes sense since the "profile" as we know it today was invented at the magazine decades ago under the editorship of Harold Ross.

At the time of the Khobar Towers bombing in August 1996, there were only seven Arabic speaking FBI agents in the entire nation, Wright notes, pointing out that the FBI was largely staffed by men of urban Irish and Italian background. One of the seven, Lebanese-American Ali Soufan, was assigned to work with O'Neill on the investigation of the USS Cole bombing; the interrogation by this loyal American of Lebanese birth of Abu Jandal in Yemen after 9/11 was instrumental in identifying the 9/11 hijackers. He now works for Rudy Giuliani's security firm.

O'Neill comes through in Wright's narrative as one of the few intelligence officers in the nation to understand the dangers of Islamic terrorism, which really is amazing considering the events of the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. O'Neill, in charge of a New York-based task force dedicated to capturing Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 WTC attack, had to deal with general tone-deafness toward Islamic terrorism that characterized both the Clinton and Bush Administrations. Yousef was captured in 1995 and now is in prison for life.

With more interagency cooperation and more leaders listening to O'Neill, his colleague and Islamism expert Dan Coleman and the CIA's Michael Scheuer, head of that agency's Alec Station counterterrorism agency in New York from 1996 to 1999, 9/11 could have been prevented, Wright argues. Scheuer and O'Neill, true to form, were bitter rivals, echoing the rivalry of the CIA and the FBI.

The lack of information sharing even resulted in some agencies threatening to install antennas on Diego Garcia and other listening posts to gather intelligence denied them by other agencies, Wright reports in a book that reads like an espionage thriller by John Le Carre or Len Deighton.

The bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania are described in detail, showing that Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri were deadly serious about their anti-U.S. jihad - even if it meant killing dozens of innocent Muslims in the process. Wright, a Tulane University graduate who taught at the American University in Cairo for two years, attempts to explain how suicide bombers and terrorists can exist in a religion that bans suicide. He interviewed hundreds of people for his exhaustive book.

We get a glimpse of life in Hamburg, Germany, one of the wealthiest cities in the nation, where 200,000 Muslims live, most of them law abiding residents of a prosperous Western nation, but a significant number who took part in the planning and execution of the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings and the failed attempt to hit the Capitol in Washington. Wright points out that the German authorities tolerate terrorists - as long as they didn't attack German targets.

Could there have been a 9/11 without Osama bin Laden? Wright says: "The answer is certainly not. Indeed, the tectonic plates of history were shifting, promoting a period of conflict between the West and the Arab Muslim world; however, the charisma and vision of a few individuals shaped the nature of this contest....without bin Laden, the Egyptians [Zawahiri, Abu Ubaydah, Saif al-Adl, and Abu Hafs] were only al-Jihad. Their goals were parochial...it was bin Laden's vision to create an international jihad corps. It was his leadership that held together an organization that had been bankrupted and thrown into exile."

Just before finishing this review, I saw Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center." I recommend the film and Wright's masterful "The Looming Tower" to anyone seeking answers to questions of why the West became a target of al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

Publisher's web site: www.aaknopf.com