Praise for Perpetrators

One of the enduring mysteries of the Sept. 11 terror attacks is why the pilots of three suicide flights all came from Hamburg. That German city on the North Sea, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said last week, served as a "central base of operations." What was it about Hamburg that made it more attractive as a base than, say, Frankfurt, London or even Cairo?

Central to that question is whether or not the terrorists were originally sent to Hamburg as agents by Osama bin Laden. Were they "sleepers," for years going about their daily business until they...

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