The New York Times takes another look at the confession by 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and decides that our Wee-Bey Theory could very well fit. Like the character from The Wire for which it's named, the Theory posits that KSM confessed to so many crimes in order to keep the heat off of the rest of his crew.
"In acknowledging last Saturday his role in more than 30 terrorist attacks and plots, Khalid Shaikh
Mohammed certainly simplified the case against himself and may have effectively signed his own death warrant when he eventually faces a military trial," the Times notes. "But those same statements, released on Wednesday by the Pentagon, may complicate the prosecution of his former colleagues."
**
A revised version of the transcript released Thursday added another chilling confession. Mr. Mohammed said he decapitated Daniel Pearl, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, in Pakistan in 2002. The military said it had held back the passage about Mr. Pearl while it notified his family.
That confession could figure in the case of Ahmed Omar Sheikh, who is appealing his death sentence in Pakistan for his role in Mr. Pearl’s abduction and murder. Mr. Mohammed and the other Qaeda leaders will eventually face charges before military commissions that they are guilty of war crimes, many of which carry death sentences.
The L.A. Times, meanwhile, ponders whether "Mohammed [was] revealing the truth about himself and his deeds, or just playing to the jury?"
A U.S. counterterrorism official agreed that Mohammed probably was using the hearing, even though it was held behind closed doors, to exaggerate his role in Al Qaeda plots and attacks.
"Obviously he saw this as a platform to continue the jihad, so there is an element of that," said the counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss Mohammed.
Some of Mohammed's claims in recent years have been doubted by federal authorities, who say the alleged plot against the Library Tower in Los
Angeles, for instance, was one of several that never got past the drawing board.
But the counterterrorism official said some of the claims made by Mohammed during interrogations over the last four years had been corroborated after extensive investigation by U.S.
authorities.
And Larisa Alexandrovna wonders the guy -- or, at least, the guy we've seen -- is really KSM at all.
UPDATE: ABC News is all over the Wee-Bey Theory, too.
"I get a sense that his ego was enormous, and that he would take credit for anything and everything," said Jack Cloonan, an ABC News analyst and former senior agent on the FBI's bin Laden squad who investigated
Mohammed. "What's missing is the evidence and details about the plots
-- the fact that he can't provide that shows that he is in lying mode."*
Among the claims that provoked skepticism in Cloonan were previously unknown plots to attack U.S. military bases in South Korea and to assassinate President Carter...*
"He's following that old baseball adage -- taking one for the club,"
says Cloonan. "He understands that when he goes on trial, he will be executed. Having faced that, he sees himself as a holy warrior, and we've given him a stage in an anointing that he doesn't deserve..."*
"I'm surprised that he didn't take responsibility for killing JFK," says Cloonan. "That he was actually on the grassy knoll."*
