Egyptian al Qaeda leader Mohammed Atef was an effective CEO. When he caught one of his men being wasteful and insubordinate, he fired off a memo that would make Jack Welch blush with envy. This excerpt is from that newly released memo, written sometime before 2001:

I was very upset by what you did. I obtained 75,000 rupees for you and your family’s trip to Egypt. I learned that you did not submit the voucher to the accountant, and that you made reservations for 40,000 rupees and kept the remainder claiming you have a right to do so. . . . Also with respect to the air-conditioning unit . . . furniture used by brothers in Al Qaeda is not considered private property. . . . I would like to remind you and myself of the punishment for any violation.

It seems doubtful that Osama bin Laden is today cooling himself before GE’s latest cave unit. Bureaucratic nitpicking is a sign of petty fractures, sure. But it’s also a luxury, a sign of strength and organizational viability: a ragtag group of wayward fighters doesn’t waste time issuing reprimands over the mishandling of vouchers.

A popular line of argument maintains that al Qaeda, prior to the War on Terror, was less a reified entity and more a collective state of mind. According to this argument, our concerted military effort against al Qaeda helped the group coalesce and gain strength. That is, the War on Terror turned a manageable phenomenon of scattered troublemakers into a formidable enemy.

Pre-War on Terror documents like the one above provide an eloquent refutation of that claim. In 2001 al Qaeda was well-funded, well-organized, and virtually care-free. Somehow, it’s hard to imagine today’s al Qaeda (which has been broken and scattered) reprimanding foot soldiers about losing track of receipts—let alone air conditioners. The only communiqués that show up these days bemoan plummeting morale and increasing troop losses.