Osama bin Laden, left, converses with an unidentified Saudi sheik in the subtitled videotape released Thursday by the Pentagon.
Dec. 13 — In a homemade videotape that U.S. officials say was recovered from a residence in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, a smiling Osama bin Laden said “we did not reveal” the plan to the hijackers in the Sept. 11 terror attacks until “just before they boarded the planes.” He also described watching the first television reports on the attacks with 50 to 60 supporters. “They were overjoyed when the first plane hit the building, so I said to them: ‘Be patient,’” he said, according to a subtitled translation of the tape released Thursday by the Pentagon.
ON THE VIDEOTAPE — which apparently was made at a dinner party in early November — bin Laden also is quoted as describing the planning for the attack and estimating in advance how many people would be killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center towers.
“We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors,” he said....