Bush: 'We're At War'

The blame game will go on. But the finger-pointing may miss a darker and more troubling truth about the shocking attack. It is very difficult for a free and open society to defend against terrorists who are at once patient, smart and willing to die. The operatives run by Al Qaeda, the terrorist organization that reports to bin Laden, appear to be all three. As the PENTTBOM investigation exposes the sophisticated and long-conceived suicide plot, a portrait of evil genius emerges.

It is often said that Islamic extremists wish to turn back history. They want to destroy the Western modernity that threatens to eclipse their fantasy of an 11th-century theocracy. But, like a judo expert who leverages his opponent's superior weight and mass against him, Islamic terrorists have found a diabolically clever way to flip the Great Satan on his back. Blending into American society for months and even years, quietly awaiting the signal to move, bin Laden's operatives have learned how to turn two of America's greatest strengths--openness and technology--into weapons against the American people. Armed with pocket knives, they transformed U.S. airliners into guided missiles, flying bombs packed with 60,000 gallons of explosive fuel. That feat, while awesome, could be just the beginning. Talking on cell phones and by encrypted e-mail, operatives in bin Laden's far-flung network can communicate from Afghanistan to Miami with little risk of immediate detection. It is chilling to think what they could accomplish if they get their hands on the acme of Western military science, the nuclear bomb. Without doubt, they are trying.

"The ability to take our expertise and turn it on us is exhilarating to them," says Sen. Ron Wyden, a member of the Senate intelligence committee. "They stay at it and stay at it to learn how to defeat our technological systems. It's like rattling doors through the neighborhood, looking for one to break in. That's what they're doing with our technology." The lock to America's rickety, overburdened air-control system was especially easy to pick. But America's water and electrical supplies aren't much better safeguarded. And teenage computer hackers have already demonstrated how to use the wide-open Internet to wreck cyberhavoc on American businesses and homes.

For all their professed devotion to medieval religiosity, the terrorists themselves appear to have comfortably blended into American culture. They do not appear to be poor, or desperate or down on their luck, like the stereotype of a young Arab man drawn to the false promise of entering Paradise through martyrdom. At least one of the 19 had a family, and all apparently lived comfortable middle-class lives, with enough money to rent cars, go to school and violate the Quran's ban on alcohol by visiting the occasional bar. A senior European intelligence official told NEWSWEEK that some of the hijackers may have had Swiss bank accounts, which have now been frozen by Swiss authorities. Two of the alleged hijackers aboard Flight 93, Ahmed Alhaznawi and Ziad Jarrahi, drove a Ford Ranger and lived in a quiet neighborhood in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Fla. In front of the house was a wooden wind chime carrying the message this house is full of love. NEWSWEEK has learned that the Pentagon has referred to the FBI reports that three of the hijackers may have received help from Uncle Sam--as trainees at Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida; two others may have studied at Air Force facilities.

Osama bin Laden, their spiritual leader and financier, comes from a privileged background himself. One of more than 50 children of Yemeni billionaire parents who got rich off construction contracts in Saudi Arabia, Osama, for a time, made money on those most Western of beverages, Coke and Pepsi. During the early '90s, while he lived in Sudan, he owned part of a company that produced gum arabic, an essential ingredient of many soft drinks. Bin Laden may not have a vast personal fortune, at least not the $300 million ascribed to him, but he is able to secure funds from nefarious sources. According to intelligence sources, his agents are involved in drug running and he receives "blood money" payment from frightened Arab regimes that want to buy protection from his zealotry. According to U.S. intelligence sources, bin Laden is able to pay pensions to the families of suicide bombers.

Mohamed Atta was, according to investigators, the perfect soldier in bin Laden's army. He was a citizen of the world. Traveling on a passport from the United Arab Emirates, he lived in Germany for a time, studying at the Technical University in Hamburg. He frequented a nightspot named Sharky's Billiard Bar ("the Bar With Mega-Possibilities"), wore black jeans, and rented--but failed to return--a video of John Carpenter's "Vampire." At the same time, he requested and received a prayer room at the university for himself and about 20 other Muslim students. In the last two years, he began to wear Muslim dress.