” ‘How much more can the U.S. Treasury handle?’ the radical Yemeni American cleric Anwar al Awlaki asked in March [22] 2010. Referring to [Nigerian Umar Farouk] Abdulmutallab’s [attempted bombing] attack on the Detroit-bound plane [on December 25, 2009], he continued, ‘9/11, the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and then operations such as that of our brother Umar Farouk, which could not have cost more than a few thousand dollars, end up draining the U.S. treasury billions of dollars. …For how long can the U.S. survive this war of attrition?’ ”
– Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Bin Laden’s Legacy, Page 11