“The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it … .”

— Osama bin Laden, February 1998

Bin Laden, the al Qaeda terrorist leader, issued his “fatwa” only seven months before the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed on Aug. 7, 1998. The United States could have increased our security measures everywhere, yet Washington remained unprepared to avoid the disastrous destruction of the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001.