8A THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 2006
WAR ON TERROR
Moussaoui role in 9/11 clouded
BY MATTHEW BARAKAT THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Two more high-ranking al-Qaida operatives cast doubt on whether Zacarias Moussaoui was involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, with one portraying him as a misfits who refused to follow orders, in testimony Tuesday at his death penalty trial.
The testimony of both was read to the jury, in one case because the witness is a captive whom the U.S. government did not want to appear in court.
One terrorist, identified as Sayi al-Adl, a senior member of al-Qaida's military committee, stated sometime between Sept. 1, 2001, and late July 2004, that Moussaiau was "a confirmed jihadist but was absolutely not going to take part in the Sept. 11, 2001, mission." The 9/11 Commission reported that the U.S. had recovered from a safehouse in Pakistan a letter written by al-Adl describing the various candidates considered for the Sept. 11 attacks.
The other — Waleed bin Attash, often known simply as Khalallad — is considered the mastermind of the 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole and an early planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, plot. He said he knew of no part that Moussaoui was to have played in the 9/11 attacks. Khalallad was captured in April 2003.
Their testimony backs up the claims of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, chief organizer of the 9/11 attacks. He said
in testimony read to the jury Monday that Moussaoui had nothing to do with the plot but was to have been used for a second wave of attacks distinct from Sept. 11.
Moussaoui said for the first time Monday that he was supposed to pilot a fifth plane in the 9/11 plot and attack the White House. He had previously denied a role in 9/11 and claimed to be part of a different plot.
The defense introduced an array of written testimony from these captives that was read to the jurors in an effort to undercut Moussaoui's dramatic testimony Monday that he was to hijack a fifth plane on Sept. 11 and fly it into the White House. His lawyers were trying to undo damage he might have done to himself when he testified against their wishes.
For example, he called Khalad daily, despite instructions to call only in an emergency, to the point where Khalad turned his cell phone off.
Khalall portrayed Moussaoui as something of a loose cannon during a trip to Malaysia in 2000, where he met members of a radical group affiliated with al-Qaida. Khallad said Moussaoui breached security measures and al-Qaida protocol.
Another witness, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, said he had seen Moussaoui at an al-Qaida guesthouse in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in the first half of 2001, but was never introduced to him or conducted operations with him.
Marching for change
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Students from different high schools around the Las Vegas area march together Tuesday in Las Vegas to protest an immigration bill being considered in Congress.
OBITUARY
Then-President Ronald Reagan, right, and Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger meet in 1984 to discuss the United States budget in Washington. Weinberger, a conservative Republican and consummate Cold Warrior who served in the Cabinets of Reagan and Richard Nixon and got ensnared in the Iran-Contra scandal, died Tuesday. He was 88.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Cold War-era defense secretary dies
BY ELIZABETH WHITE THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Caspar W. Weinberger, who oversaw the Pentagon's biggest peacetime spending increase as President Reagan's defense secretary and later was indicted for his role in the Iran-Contra affair, died Tuesday. He was 88.
Weinberger had been hospitalized in Bangor, Maine, with a high fever and pneumonia brought on by his age, according to his son, Caspar Weinberger Jr.
"He left the U.S. armed forces stronger, our country safer and the world more free," said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Weinberger served as President Nixon's budget director and was given the nickname "Cap the Knife" for his efforts to slash government spending. Yet Weinberger's best-known role may have been as Reagan's defense secretary, when the classic cold warrior presided over a cumulative $2 trillion in military spending.
Determined to ensure U.S. strategic strength to counter the Soviet Union, Weinberger pushed Congress to fund such programs as the Strategic Defense Initiative, Midgetman and MX missiles, B-1B bombers and stealth aircraft.
But it was also during this time that reports surfaced of excesses at the Pentagon, from $600 toilet seats to $400 hammers. Cartoonists had a field day portraying Weinberger with
"His legacy is a strong and free America, and for this and
for a lifetime of selfless service, a grateful nation thanks him," former first lady Nancy Reagan said Tuesday.
Supporters contended the defense buildup helped cause the collapse of the Soviet Union.
toilet seats around his neck.
In a Feb. 10, 1986, interview with The Washington Post, Reagan defended his defense secretary. "That's the same price that TWA and Delta and United pay. It is a molded cover for the entire toilet system. And, yes, it does cost about that much."
A lifelong Republican, Weinberger's early interest in politics and
Weinberger, 75 at the time, had been scheduled to stand trial in less than two weeks on charges that he concealed thousands of pages of his handwritten notes from congressional investigators and prosecutors.
He left the U.S. armed forces stronger, our country safer and the world more free."
government — sparked by his father, a lawyer — led him to the Pentagon and White House.
But his work also led to a trouble — federal felony charges stemming from his alleged role in the sale of weapons to Iran to finance secret, illegal aid to the Nicaraguan Contras.
He'd earlier rejected independent counsel Lawrence Walsh's plea-bargain offer to testify against his longtime friends and colleagues — including Reagan — and plead guilty to a misdemeanor.
The "arms-for-hostages" affair poisoned the closing years of Reagan's administration and permanently stained the reputations of the insiders involved.
Donald H. Rumsfeld Defense Secretary
In one of the first President Bush's final official acts after his 1992 loss to Bill Clinton, he granted Christmas Eve pardons to Weinberger and five others accused in the affair. Bush was Reagan's vice president.
Weinberger had said he was, innocent of all the charges and considered the indictment a political attack.
After the pardon was announced, Walsh alleged that "the Iran-Contra
cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed."
Weinberger's son said Tuesday, "My father was just a world diplomat, a No. I great American patriot. He always stayed the course. He always had beliefs, he held to those beliefs."
In 1989, Weinberger, a self-described "frustrated newspaperman" — he was president of the Harvard Crimson — joined Forbes to become the magazine's fourth publisher. In 1993 he was named chairman of Forbes Inc.
Weinberger occasionally spoke out on current affairs in recent years. In 1996, he criticized then-Defense Secretary William J. Perry for refusing to
announce publicly that the U.S. would defend Taiwan If China fired missiles at the island.
He told a Nebraska group in 1999 that despite victories in the Cold War and Gulf War, the United States still faced threats
"Peace alone is not enough. Peace can even mean slavery sometimes. Peace and freedom is what we have to have." Weinberger said.
In 1983, he argued that a force of U.S. Marines stationed at Beirut's airport was too small and lightly armed, calling them a "disaster waiting to happen." On Oct. 22, 1983, 241 Marines and sailors were killed in attacks on the barracks.
In an interview with PBS' "Frontline" in late September 2001, Weinberger said, "The fact that I had been warning against this very thing didn't give me any slight satisfaction, I can assure of that. It was terrible to be proven right under such horrible circumstances."
Born Aug. 18, 1917, in San Francisco, Weinberger attended Harvard, graduating in 1938 and getting his law degree from Harvard in 1941. He served in the infantry in the Pacific in World War II.
He began his political career in 1952 in the California Legislature, where he took on and cleaned up a corrupt state liquor commission.
Weinberger, who called himself a "fiscal Puritan" and believed budgets should always be balanced, first demonstrated his budget-trimming talents in the late 1960s.
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