On October 29, 2004, Al Jazeera aired a videotape of Osama bin Laden, his first in over a year. He said: ” ‘Your security is not in the hands of [Democratic presidential candidate John] Kerry, or [President] Bush, or al-Qaeda. It is in your own hands and any state that does not violate our security has automatically guaranteed its own,’ implying that al-Qaeda would suspend its attacks if there were a change in U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world. On the videotape bin Laden for the first time made an unequivocal public admission of his own involvement in the 9/11 plot, saying that he had agreed with the lead hijacker Mohammed Atta, ‘that his mission be accomplished in twenty minutes before Bush and his administration had time to notice.’ “
– Peter Bergen, The Longest War, Page 84