Al Jazeera released material from an Osama bin Laden videotape on October 29, 2004. “As part of the ‘bleed-until-bankruptcy plan,’ bin Laden cited a British estimate that it cost al Qaeda about $500,000 to carry out the attacks of September 11, 2001, an amount that he said paled in comparison with the costs incurred by the United States. ‘Every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars, by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs,’ he said. ‘As for the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.’ ”
– “Bin Laden: Goal is to Bankrupt U.S.,” CNN.com, Nov. 1, 2004