PROFILING THE ADVERSARY

Defense scholar offers a chilling bin Laden portrayal

By John Donnelly, Globe Staff, 10/7/2001

ASHINGTON - For an hour, Bard E. O'Neill was Osama bin Laden.

Standing before several hundred people at a recent National Defense University seminar on the Sept. 11 attacks, O'Neill adopted bin Laden's calm demeanor, his soft speaking style, and, he believes, his way of thinking.

''This was not a cowardly act,'' O'Neill, a professor of national security strategy, said while playing the role of bin Laden. ''This was not without purpose. It was done by heroic martyrs. Nineteen people sacrificed their lives. People don't understand the reasons why they did it. I will explain it to you.''

A hush fell over the audience, most of it scholars at the Pentagon-run school.

For those like O'Neill who have studied bin Laden's life, or others who have talked with him over the years, a rough consensus has developed about bin Laden's frame of mind: While hunkered down somewhere in Afghanistan, he is ready to fight, prepared to become a martyr for his followers, and if found, hoping to inflict as many US military casualties as possible.

O'Neill, again in character, told the audience that the US administration's vows to hunt him down are not credible.

''It can't be done,'' he said. ''The administration will appoint people to this and that, and there won't be coordination, and people from different agencies won't share information.''

During a question-and-answer session, members of the audience addressed O'Neill as ''Mr. bin Laden.''

And later one Defense Department official said he got chills listening to him. ''He just gave everyone a heart attack,'' the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ''He was saying things we already knew.''

The defense official continued, quoting O'Neill as bin Laden: ''`Well, we have these experts here, but how many people in the audience are here from different agencies that need to hear this? How many from the State Department? How many from FEMA?' One or two raised their hand.''

Some see clues to bin Laden's makeup in his upbringing.

Born into one of Saudi Arabia's wealthiest families, bin Laden is one of more than two-dozen sons of a father who had four known wives. Three were Saudis. The fourth, bin Laden's mother, was Syrian-Palestinian. Psychological profiles of bin Laden done by O'Neill and others suggest that bin Laden's heritage made him more of a marginal figure growing up than sons born of Saudi mothers.

''In families like that, people who are essentially in the superior position are, guess what, the Saudis,'' O'Neill said in an interview. ''He develops animus toward the Saudis, even though the family is making money big time, and his distaste turns into withdrawal. He is nonviolent at first. The violence comes later.''

Bin Laden stepped into war in the mid-1980s, when he and other Arabs joined the Afghan mujahideen battling Soviet occupiers in Afghanistan. Even though the United States supplied weapons and money to the mujahideen and bin Laden came in contact with several American trainers, he always was uncomfortable with the interjection of the West into the fight.

His job was to recruit true believers willing to die in battle and setting up training camps. The battle boosted bin Laden's profile, among the fighters and his family, O'Neill said.

''He gains notoriety, and suddenly emerges as somebody, somebody important, so he can say, `Hi, mom, look at how important I am,''' O'Neill said. ''For any person in this fight, in the Arab culture they gain respect as the heroic figures.''

In the 1990s, he grew increasingly radical. Under US pressure, the Saudi government canceled his passport in 1991 and removed his citizenship in 1994. Sudan forced him out in 1996, and then he moved to Afghanistan.

His call for jihad, or a holy war, was first steeped in opposition to US troops on Saudi soil. The Saudi government, he has said, were apostates for allowing the foreigners on their land. As his fight against the United States deepened in the 1990s, bin Laden began to grow increasingly dismissive of the US government, calling American officials cowards in several interviews.

Belief in the weakness of US society is shared by bin Laden's followers, said Jessica Stern, a lecturer at Harvard and a specialist on terrorist groups. ''They believe that the West is undisciplined and they will win in the clash of civilizations, because our family structure, as far as they are concerned, is destroyed. They say the West is weakened by things like fast food, pornography, and Hollywood.''

In 1996, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi conducted one of his several interviews with bin Laden. ''He started talking about how Americans are cowards, it is easy to send them away, that when they receive casualities they suffer and go,'' Khashoggi said in a telephone interview from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

But Khashoggi said bin Laden wouldn't say whether he was behind the 1993 killings of US troops in Somalia, saying that his answer could be used to indict him in the United States. But a year later, bin Laden told a CNN interviewer that he was behind the attacks, apparently no longer caring whether the United States took legal action.

''That was very important,'' Khashoggi said. ''He had decided then that he wanted the Americans to come after him. He was preparing for a showdown that he wanted. Ever since he went to Afghanistan in 1996, he has been saying to the Americans: `Come and get me. I dare you.'''

Brian Sheridan, who was a senior Pentagon official in the Clinton administration and had oversight of special forces operations, said he believes that bin Laden would not flee now.

''Could he cross the border into Pakistan and blend into crowds?'' Sheridan said. ''Sure. But I don't think he's that kind of a person. He's more of a type to die with his boots on.''

Khashoggi agreed. ''Osama knows he will become a symbol to many angry young Muslims if he dies,'' he said. ''He will not surrender. He will continue fighting, and he would much rather be killed there than arrested and be seen in orange pajamas in an American jail.''

If true, how is bin Laden positioning himself now? Khashoggi said at least one of his wives and their five children are now living in Saudi Arabia. But he may have other family members near him.

He also has been known to have about 200 armed guards that, before the Sept. 11 attacks, traveled in convoys of four-wheel-drive vehicles. But such a large number now would attract attention, as would his use of any kind of communications. Even a battery-powered television in a remote area could give off detectable signals.

O'Neill, who has portrayed other world figures in his classes at the National Defense University, said bin Laden was not a fatalist. He said bin Laden probably is doing all he can to protect himself.

Playing the part of bin Laden in the recent seminar, O'Neill also raised the idea that the exiled Saudi may see a way out. After one of the participants said that US forces would eventually find bin Laden and dismantle his Quaeda network, O'Neill laughed.

''You'll never pull it together,'' he said in bin Laden's voice. ''You'll go back to your old ways. And then I'll revisit you.''

-- Anonymous, October 07, 2001