And Then What Happened?

By MARK THOMPSON

The time frame in Ron Suskind's book is 2001-04. Where did things go from there? In an interview last week with TIME's deputy Washington bureau chief, Mark Thompson, the author answered that and other questions:

After the cyanide plot was discovered, what measures were taken to find the Saudi terrorist cell?

By the time U.S. officials were alerted to what had happened, they also knew that the team had been called off. Some months before that, al-Qaeda had cased the subways. Folks from various law-enforcement agencies in and around New York fanned out in a targeted search for anything suspicious. But they didn't find anything.

What do we know about the fate of the cell?

Al-Zawahiri called them off; he did not call them back. We have no reason to believe that they're not still here.

What's the leading theory about why al-Zawahiri called them off?

What has been concluded for the most part is this: al-Qaeda's thinking is that a second-wave attack should be more destructive and more disruptive than 9/11. Why? Because that would create an upward arc of terror and anticipation between the second and ostensibly a third attack. That fear and terror is a central goal of the al-Qaeda strategy.

How current is your reporting about the cyanide plot?

It is up-to-date as of this morning.

Is the mubtakkar device easy to make, once you have the design?

It is fairly easy to make. You need someone only modestly skilled to do it.

Why do your sources think al-Qaeda hasn't used the mubtakkar?

Al-Qaeda has a kind of loose, almost entrepreneurial structure with lots of cells in various countries that are semi-independent. I think for a weapon like this, even outliers or wannabes among the world's jihadists would probably do a check-in with the al-Qaeda leadership before they used something that would be viewed as a weapon of mass destruction.

What can possibly be gained by describing the mubtakkar device to the public?

All of the leading terrorism experts are clear on one thing: that in terms of protecting America, we are almost never going to know a place or a time of an attack. So there are plenty of people in the government who feel that this [method] is something that the American people ought to know about. If they know what it looks like, they might be able to spot it if they see it.

Does writing about the al-Qaeda mole Ali risk blowing his cover?

It certainly does not. Ali is unfindable, I am assured, and nothing in this book in any way could be possibly used to reveal his identity. He's no longer an active agent. What Ali knew was known by a significant number of others inside the senior reaches of al-Qaeda. His knowledge is not something that can be traced to any individual. That was very carefully checked with those who are fighting this war on terror. And it certainly doesn't do any harm for al-Qaeda to know that there was a mole inside of it. That creates and feeds internal dispute, dissent and suspicion, which often is poison.

What's the point of your highlighting holes in our protective net?

Al-Qaeda is absolutely aware of the holes in our protective net. I don't think there is anybody inside the U.S. government who doubts that. This book is in no way something that will advantage al-Qaeda.

Your book includes many seemingly verbatim exchanges among officials. Are these approximate quotations?

No. I used quote marks only when more than one source remembered something precisely the same way. And often I would check those quotes later with others. I had just over 100 key sources for the book. Or some of the quotations were written down as transcriptions by someone. There's no New Journalism here.

> To pose your own questions to author Ron Suskind, go to timearchive.com/suskind