The U.S. is "indefensible"

Former Bush insider Ron Suskind discusses the London bomb plot, and says the president shouldn't claim we're safer than we were before 9/11.

By Alex Koppelman

Read more: London, Politics, News, al-qaida, Alex Koppelman

Ron Suskind

Aug. 11, 2006 | Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind's latest book, "The One Percent Doctrine," a history of how the Bush administration has fought the war on terror, was the product of Suskind's remarkable access to some of the highest-level decision makers in that war. After the revelation Thursday that British authorities had apparently disrupted a terror plot that may have reached or exceeded the scale of 9/11, Salon spoke with Suskind to get his perspective, and the perspectives of his sources, on the day's events.

Have you spoken with any of your sources in government, or now out of government, and if so, what are they saying?

Well, they're saying a variety of things. They're saying this sort of event would actually fit with the general thinking as to what al-Qaida has planned for a so-called second wave to 9/11: numerous airplanes blowing up over the airspace of the United States would, in the mind of the terrorism experts I'm talking to, comport with our view as to al-Qaida's playbook in terms of a second-wave attack to follow 9/11. It would be very visible, there would be lots of casualties, and planes blowing up over large urban areas would of course create havoc.

I thought one of the really fascinating points in your book was that al-Qaida may not have been thwarted from attacking us after 9/11, but they may have made a strategic decision to focus their efforts elsewhere. Are you hearing, or do you think, that this is a strategic shift back to the American mainland?

Well, the thinking is that al-Qaida has the ability to attack us at any time or place of their choosing, that we should not view the passage of time as a kind of proxy for victory and view it in any kind of self-satisfied way, that we're doing something that's stopping them from this next destructive moment. What we know about al-Qaida is that they think very long-term. We think in news cycles; they think in decades.

They have spent a good deal of energy thinking about what is appropriate to follow 9/11. It could take years for them to come up with something that is a sufficiently destructive next act in this drama that they are driving. If the next attack is bigger than 9/11, what it does is create an upward arc of terror and anticipation between that second act and whatever follows, however many years later. I think the other thing that's important here, that the book shows, is really, more than anything else, discretion. They're making decisions. They may not have actually been trying to attack the United States in these ensuing years. Even though folks in government have sort of been taking some credit for the fact that there hasn't been an attack, I think they know better.

Is it possible also that there's a political strategy to this, that they feel they've lost some status to Hezbollah and they're trying to reestablish themselves in the minds of the Arab street?

No doubt. I think that if folks here sat down with some of the leaders of al-Qaida they'd probably be less surprised than they might expect. They do things for political reasons, they do things for tactical and strategic reasons, they read and study what's happening around the world, and the fact is, there is a struggle as to who will lead the world jihadist movement and revolution. Right now, [Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan] Nasrallah and the folks in Lebanon are the center of attention. I'm sure al-Qaida, which has no enormous love for Hezbollah, is saying, "Let's make this a healthy competition as to who is the true leader." There may be something to that. Certainly I think that would fit with the general analysis of what drives their behavior.

We've been hearing recently, with the announcements of other terror plots, that this was the big one, this was serious, and then we hear, well, maybe not. Do you think this could end up like that?

I think that now the game has changed a bit. There's more rigor and more transparency built in to the system. In the first few years after 9/11, there was a thinking by governments like the United States and Britain that essentially they could say whatever they feel they must say, and reveal whatever they decide they would like to reveal, and sometimes, because all that is locked in a vault, that gives them kind of a creative liberty. I think that's changing year by year, month by month.

Now they are understanding that if they make a claim as to the seriousness of an event in this current environment, where lives are disrupted and fear passes around like a spore, they will have to show evidence that it is as serious as they have claimed. I think they understand, finally, that a part of the challenge here is not to fall into a "cry wolf" kind of tailspin, because people do want to know. They're claiming it was a significant attack close to its operational moment, and I think that in the current environment, where people are clamoring for more transparency, both in Britain and the United States, taking ownership of this war on terror as citizens, they're going to have to show the proof. I think they know that, and that's why I think it probably is credible in this case.

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