Zacarias Moussaoui has pleaded guilty in connection with the 9/11 attacks but his role remains unclear.

“I am guilty of a broad conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction to destroy the White House.” What’s that? A weapon of mass destruction? You mean we’ve finally found one? Actually, he was referring to a passenger plane.

“I was being trained on the 747 … to eventually use this plane to strike the White House. But this conspiracy was a different conspiracy from September 11th.”

How different? Was it meant to be part of a second wave after 9/11? It’s unclear.

Moussaoui said, too, that his goal was to free Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the “blind sheik,” who is serving a life sentence for conspiracy to blow up New York bridges and tunnels and other landmarks in 1993. (Rahman was prosecuted by NRO contributor and FDD Senior Fellow Andrew McCarthy.)

Moussaoui is an example of the kind of enemy we face. He is not the product of poverty, ignorance and hopelessness. He has an advanced business degree from a college in England. He is, said US District Judge Leonie Brinkema, “an extremely intelligent man. He has, actually, a better understanding of the legal system than some lawyers I’ve seen in court.”

But he fervently believes in a politicized and militarized version of Islam. He interprets “jihad” to mean a struggle to the death against what he calls “the infidels” of what we call the Free World and what he calls the Dar al Harb, the “House of War.”

Pace Pat Buchanan and Robert Novak (whom Michael Ledeen and I are debating today — and you’re invited — ) such people can not be appeased.

After pleading guilty, Moussaoui said: “”Allah akhbar! God Curse America!” Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty.