Michael Scheuer

And from 1995 until 1999, I was chief of the Osama bin Laden unit.

I would say it was 1983 to 1992.

I worked on Afghanistan.

I worked on the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden was a popular name during the war against the Soviets.

We knew he was fighting in Afghanistan.

Osama bin Laden was born in 1957 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, into a well-connected and wealthy family.

In 1996, bin Laden announced what he said was his declaration of war against the United States.

And it's a very compelling document to this day because it doesn't have anything to do with what the American people were told about either Islam or Al-Qaeda or Osama bin Laden.

The basis of the declaration of war from him was, get out of our land.

That was a compelling message within a Middle Eastern framework that had been dominated by the United States government and the Israelis since the end of World War II.

We wanted some basic information about Osama bin Laden, his bank accounts, his health information, his educational information, very basic things.

We kept sending a message because it was important.

We were building a base of data.

And so the COS in Saudi Arabia at the time, John Brennan, we didn't know if he was dealing with them on the issue or not.

And so we finally sent a message that said, didn't say pretty please, but said, please do this as quickly as possible.

He called Tenet and said,

That was the end of that.

Don't send Brendan any more of these notes.

So whatever the reason was, I don't know.