De berichtgeving over de bekentenissen van Mohammed vertoont mankementen vanaf het eerste moment. 'Mr. Mohammed, 41, is an ethnic Pakistani who grew up in Kuwait and graduated from North Carolina State Agricultural and Technical State University in 1986. He was captured on March 1, 2003, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, and was held in the secret C.I.A. prison system, where he is believed to have been subjected to harsh interrogation', schrijft The New York Times. Ondanks zijn in de VS afgeronde universitaire opleiding is de man niet in staat correct Engels te spreken, zo blijkt uit het transcript [PDF] van zijn bekentenissen. Sterker, het gebezigde Engels is uitermate gebrekkig; de New York Times noemt het een 'rambling statement'.
Dit staat in schril contrast met deze omschrijving van Mohammed, genoteerd vlak na diens arrestatie door terrorisme-expert Dr. Rohan Gunaratna in een artikel voor The Guardian met de kop Womaniser, joker, scuba diver: the other face of al-Qaida's No 3: 'A master of disguise, he often tinted his hair, using wigs, sporting beards and moustache, and wearing glasses. He wore Asian or western clothes, spoke very good English and moved about frequently.' Op dezelfde dag schrijft de Indiase krant The Tribune: 'Fluent in Arabic, English and Urdu, Mohammed is known to have used 60 aliases. His identity was kept secret even from many of his Al-Qaida operatives. When Mohammed was not plotting destruction in Manila, he was partying, Philippine intelligence agents were quoted as saying. Mohammed took up with a bar girl he met at the Cotton Candy Club. Later he hired a helicopter and pilot to impress a female dentist he was courting.' Dit beschrijft niet het profiel van een devote moslim die uit naam van Allah aanslagen wil plegen.

De vraag doemt op wie de man is die recent de voorpagina's haalde met een terreur-C.V. dat zo indrukwekkend is dat het ongeloofwaardig wordt. Hij zou 'van a tot z' verantwoordelijk zijn geweest voor de aanslagen op 9/11, maar zou ook aanslagen op president Carter, de beurs in New York en het Panamakanaal op het oog hebben gehad. Paul Joseph Watson schrijft over een van de bekentenissen van Mohammed: '[...] it emerged that one of the targets he identified, the Plaza Bank, was not founded until 2006, four years after the alleged Al-Qaeda mastermind's arrest.' Ook zou de Al-Qaidaman betrokken zijn geweest bij de moord op de journalist Daniel Pearl. Hoe het ook zij, in 2003 schrijft B. Raman in een artikel met de titel Mystery surrounding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: '[...] Pakistani security agencies, while investigating another case, fell upon a group of some other terrorists belonging to the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (International). During the interrogation, they surprised Pakistani and US intelligence agencies by claiming it was they who had killed Pearl. They led the police to a spot on the outskirts of Karachi where Pearl's remains were found buried. Forensic tests confirmed their finding and the remains were subsequently handed over to his widow.' The New York Times schrijft subtiel: 'It is not clear how many of Mr. Mohammed's expansive claims were legitimate.' Deze constatering moet ook worden gezien in het licht van dit citaat uit de serie van DeepJournal over het Amerikaanse systeem waarin verdachten worden gemarteld: 'According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess', reported ABC.' Nog voor de vraag aan de orde is wie de man was die al deze bekentenissen deed, zijn er andere vragen. Zoals: Heeft hij deze bekentenissen wel gedaan, is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ooit uitgeleverd aan de VS en leeft Khalid Sheikh Mohammed eigenlijk nog wel?

Om met de eerste vraag te beginnen, is het interessant om het boek Crossing the Rubicon erbij te pakken. Op pagina 580 schrijft Mike Ruppert over 'KSM': 'The US government has failed to produce - publicly, or for the one failed 9/11 criminal prosecution in Germany of Mounir el Motassadeq - either bin al-Shibh or KSM as material witnesses. No mere mortal has seen either one of them since their reported captures. Credible reports have told us that KSM was killed. Any information alleged to have come from these ‘captured' suspects has come in the form of "press-release prosecution" by the government. None of it has ever been independently authenticated.' En ook in het geval van de bekentenis van Mohammed is er sprake van 'press-release prosecution', wat maakt dat de validiteit van het document [PDF] in geding is. Het enige argument dat wordt gegeven om aan te nemen dat het document een daadwerkelijk verslag is van de zaak tegen Mohammed is het woord van de Bush-regering.

Op de vraag of Mohammed überhaupt wel in de VS was om zijn uitspraken te doen, schrijft Reuters een dag na de arrestatie van de man in 2003: 'Pakistan's interior minister on Sunday denied reports that suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been handed over to the United States and said he was still in Pakistan.' De eerder genoemde B. Raman schrijft een dag later in zijn artikel: '[...] Pakistani authorities did a volte face within 24 hours and denied that Mohammad had been taken out of Pakistan. He was being interrogated in Pakistani territory by Pakistani officials, they maintained. Faisal Saleh Hayat, Pakistan's interior minister, even denied that the US had requested his extradition. He added that Mohammad would first be tried in Pakistan for offences before considering his extradition. Hayat confounded the confusion by saying since Mohammad is a Kuwaiti national, if at all he is extradited, he would be sent to Kuwait and not to the US. Why this confusion? No credible answer is available.'

Wat bijdraagt aan die verwarring is vraag of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed nog wel in leven is. In het jaar voorafgaand aan zijn arrestatie schrijft de Asia Times dat wordt beweerd dat op 11 september van dat jaar (2002) Mohammed zou zijn gedood bij zijn arrestatie. Zijn vrouw zou het lichaam hebben geïdentificeerd waarna het onder toezicht van het FBI zou zijn begraven in Karachi: 'The FBI, still keen to take Shaikh Mohammed alive, teargassed the area, and a number of people were captured. However, despite instructions to the contrary, a few Pakistan Rangers entered the flat, where they found Shaikh Mohammed and another man, allegedly with their hands up. The Rangers nevertheless opened fire on the pair. [...] But now it emerges that an Arab woman and a child were taken to an ISI safe house, where they identified the Shaikh Mohammed's body as their husband and father. The body was kept in a private NGO mortuary for 20 days before being buried, under the surveillance of the FBI, in a graveyard in the central district of Karachi. The widow subsequently underwent exhaustive interrogation in the custody of FBI officials, during which she revealed details of people who visited her husband, and of his other contacts and plans. News of the death of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was intentionally suppressed so that officials could play on the power of his name to follow up leads and contacts.'

'Until we hear more, the mystery of who KSM is and what he was responsible for is still a mystery', schrijft Robert Baer, voormalig CIA-agent in het Midden-Oosten.