File photo of Osama Bin Laden. (Associated Press)
Osama bin Laden's English language reading list included numerous books by conspiracy theorists and an inordinate number on France, suggesting he may have planned to strike the country's economy, US officials said Wednesday.
His "bookshelf" included titles by US journalist Bob Woodward and linguist and leftist Noam Chomsky as well as a history of the French economy and an unpublished manuscript of a study called "Did France Cause the Great Depression?"
US intelligence agencies for the first time released the list of English language texts found at Bin Laden's Pakistani compound after the American military raid that killed the Al-Qaeda chief on May 2, 2011.
Jeffrey Anchukaitis, spokesman for the US director of national intelligence's office, said Bin Laden "appears to have been interested in attacking the economy of France in the hope that an economic collapse there would trigger one in the US or the rest of the Western world."
US intelligence analysts were not surprised Bin Laden was interested in attacking the economies of west, but Anchukaitis said "it was surprising that he asked for so many books on France."
The spokesman told AFP that "just because he had these books doesn't mean he was committed to that course of action."
"It means he had asked his lieutenants to bring him information on France," he said.
The list, which was posted on the ODNI's website, also included texts on France's military health services, defense industry and "water profile."
About half of the books on the reading list, promote various conspiracies -- including books questioning the official account that Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda carried out the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.
The list included conspiracy theorist David Ray Griffin's "The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11" and "The Secrets of the Federal Reserve" by Eustace Mullins, known as a denier of the Holocaust.
The release of the reading list coincided with the declassification of more than 100 documents found at Bin Laden's hideout, which came after Congress ordered the spy agencies to release more of the material that was seized in the Navy SEAL raid.
The documents, provided to AFP exclusively before their public release, shed light on Bin Laden's mindset, his concerns about security and his preoccupation with staging more large-scale attacks on the United States.
Here's the list of books, reproduced from http://www.dni.gov/index.php/resources/bin-laden-bookshelf:
- The 2030 Spike by Colin Mason
- A Brief Guide to Understanding Islam by I. A. Ibrahim
- America's Strategic Blunders by Willard Matthias
- America's "War on Terrorism" by Michel Chossudovsky
- Al-Qaeda's Online Media Strategies: From Abu Reuter to Irhabi 007 by Hanna Rogan
- The Best Democracy Money Can Buy by Greg Palast
- The Best Enemy Money Can Buy by Anthony Sutton
- Black Box Voting, Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century by Bev Harris
- Bloodlines of the Illuminati by Fritz Springmeier
- Bounding the Global War on Terror by Jeffrey Record
- Checking Iran's Nuclear Ambitions by Henry Sokolski and Patrick Clawson
- Christianity and Islam in Spain 756-1031 A.D. by C. R. Haines
- Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies by Cheryl Benard
- Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
- Conspirators' Hierarchy: The Committee of 300 by John Coleman
- Crossing the Rubicon by Michael Ruppert
- Fortifying Pakistan: The Role of U.S. Internal Security Assistance (only the book's introduction) by C. Christine Fair and Peter Chalk
- Guerilla Air Defense: Antiaircraft Weapons and Techniques for Guerilla Forces by James Crabtree
- Handbook of International Law by Anthony Aust
- Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance by Noam Chomsky
- Imperial Hubris by Michael Scheuer
- In Pursuit of Allah's Pleasure by Asim Abdul Maajid, Esaam-ud-Deen and Dr. Naahah Ibrahim
- International Relations Theory and the Asia-Pacific by John Ikenberry and Michael Mastandano
- Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II by William Blum
- Military Intelligence Blunders by John Hughes-Wilson
- Project MKULTRA, the CIA's program of research in behavioral modification. Joint hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate, Ninety-fifth Congress, first session, August 3, 1977. United States. Congress. Senate. Select Committee on Intelligence.
- Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies by Noam Chomsky
- New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11 by David Ray Griffin
- New Political Religions, or Analysis of Modern Terrorism by Barry Cooper
- Obama's Wars by Bob Woodward
- Oxford History of Modern War by Charles Townsend
- The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy
- Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower by William Blum
- The Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly Hall (1928)
- Secrets of the Federal Reserve by Eustace Mullins
- The Taking of America 1-2-3 by Richard Sprague
- Unfinished Business, U.S. Overseas Military Presence in the 21st Century by Michael O'Hanlon
- The U.S. and Vietnam 1787-1941 by Robert Hopkins Miller
- "Website Claims Steve Jackson Games Foretold 9/11," article posted on ICV2.com (this file contained only a single saved web page)