Osama bin Laden

Other available biographies depict Osama bin Laden as a historical figure, the mastermind behind 9/11, but no longer relevant to the world it created. These accounts, the author believes, have contributed to a widespread and dangerous denial of his continuing significance and power. In this book the author, the first head of the CIA's bin Laden Unit, provides a closely reasoned portrait of bin Laden showing him to be a figure of remarkable leadership skills, strategic genius, and considerable rhetorical abilities. 9/11 almost instantaneously remade American politics and foreign policy. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Patriot Act, water boarding and Guantanamo are examples of its profound and far-reaching effects. Because he led the effort to track down bin Laden, the author is able to draw from a wealth of information about bin Laden and his evolution from peaceful Saudi dissident to America's Most Wanted. Shedding light on his development as a theologian, media manipulator, and paramilitary commander, the author makes use of all the speeches and interviews bin Laden has given as well as lengthy interviews, testimony, and previously untranslated documents written by those who grew up with bin Laden in Saudi Arabia, served as his bodyguards and drivers, and fought alongside him against the Soviets. The bin Laden who emerges from these accounts is devout, talented, patient, and ruthless; in other words, a truly formidable and implacable enemy of the West.