Getting Bin Laden: What happened that night in Abbottabad

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/08/110808fa_fact_schmidle?currentPage=all

by AngryParsley • 15 years ago

245 140 15 years ago

gwern• 15 years ago

Points of interest to me:

- distrust of Pakistan runs high

- the article is almost coy about how OBL's safehouse was so close to a military academy and the contacts with another group tightly linked to ISI; this says to me the sources did not want to discuss anything more than was already public. (And do keep in mind that this sort of article is usually a tissue of deliberate leaks, so what is not said is almost as interesting as what is said. If one were particularly cynical, one might read this into the general downplaying of the downed chopper, the one major flaw of the operation.)

- the Pakistani retaliation with the newspapers was very interesting indeed

- the dumping-the-body-at-sea thing had precedent! I had not known that. The Saudi refusal to take the body was also interesting, but in line with the general public/private dichotomy of their behavior.

- the bombing suggestion would have been... interesting. All things considered, the SEAL team does seem like a better idea.

Alex39178• 15 years ago

"All along, the SEALs had planned to dump bin Laden’s corpse into the sea—a blunt way of ending the bin Laden myth."

Yeah right. The only reason his body was dumped into the sea is because if they had paraded it around, everyone would be able to see that OBL isn't the same as the guy in the video who claimed credit for 9/11.

hugh33• 15 years ago

Man, these guys went to a lot of effort to get a fake body, then.

Oh well, I guess that's government projects for you.

burgerbrain7• 15 years ago

What are you suggesting? Are you saying it's because he would be an old frail man? Or that the name actually belongs to an entirely different body but for unexplained reasons this is being covered up?

Very confusing comment.

jmtame• 15 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burial_at_sea

The photos are highly classified, and they've stated why they don't want to release them. If Osama was shot with a high caliber bullet in the face, you probably can't even recognize him anyway.

Did any of the news outlets ever confirm the photo released was actually from the government? I haven't seen any of them say "we obtained this photo from the government," I have only seen one station run the single photo, and they explicitly said it was unconfirmed.

flipbrad3• 15 years ago

This article says saudis weren't offered the body, mind you - john brennan phoned "a former counterpart in Saudi intelligence" to ask if it was a good idea.

GHFigs2• 15 years ago

The article does not say the Saudis weren't offered the body. In fact it implies they were:

Did the Saudi government have any interest in taking the body? “Your plan sounds like a good one,” the Saudi replied.

runjake3• 15 years ago

| The Saudi refusal to take the body was also interesting, but in line with the general public/private dichotomy of their behavior.

Dichotomy? What dichotomy?

While the Saudi rulers have a good relationship with the Bin Laden family, they despised Osama Bin Laden. They thought that Osama was a threat to their leadership. Osama criticized them and wanted their overthrow. And Osama thought that the Saudis were American puppets.

And Re: Pakistan. It's a hard-to-tread situation. The most powerful in the Pakistani government are dispersed into groups of "Love the Taliban/Al Qaeda"/"Love the Americans ('s money)/"We just want to be left alone. And nobody from one group wants to piss off someone in another group, so it's this cloak and dagger situation.

nate_meurer8• 15 years ago

I'm also impressed by the lack of trust in the Pakistanis.

By far my favorite MSM reporting on the raid is the WSJ article by Siobhan Gorman and Julian Barnes, "Spy, Military Ties Aided bin Laden Raid". Google for the title and you can read the full version from Google's cache.

If the article is to be believed, Barack Obama's role in the planning is quite impressive. He choose the riskiest of the options offered to him; the military consensus was leaning toward heavy bombing that would have guaranteed civilian casualties, but would minimize exposure to U.S. personnel. Apparently, Somalia still looms large in the memories of military leadership.

Obama took the bombing option off the table completely, and told them to do it the Hard Way -- sending commandos 128 miles into Pakistan's interior. But the best part is that Obama explicitly equipped the SEALs to blast their way out if the raid went bad and Pakistanis showed up shooting. That as opposed to throwing up their hands and surrendering, and then letting the diplomats try to arrange their release in the ensuing months (or maybe years; it took us months to get back one single CIA contractor arrested earlier this year). From the article:

"Mr. Obama directed Adm. McRaven to develop a stronger U.S. escape plan. The team would be equipped to fight its way out and would have two helicopters on stand-by in case of an emergency."

Now that, my friends, is risky. The ways in which this thing could have gone bad are almost too ugly to contemplate. How could Obama & co. possibly not have crapped their pants watching the raid live from the white house?

clarkevans• 15 years ago

Even so, having the backup option didn't negate the political option; while, not having the backup (in hindsight) would have guaranteed a political showdown.

mturmon• 15 years ago

Just to take one of your points farther, I think the beefiness of the escape plan illustrates how little Obama values the Pakistani relationship. And how much he wanted OBL, and how much he trusted DEVGRU.

cschmidt• 15 years ago

They do look a little worried watching it all go down:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/5680724572/

throwaway628• 15 years ago

really interesting article, but a few questions:

1) when did it suddenly become ok for the military to shoot unarmed combatants?

2) if "no one wanted detainees" why weren't the women with usama killed?

3) Is freezing no longer considered a form of surrender (seems especially relevant when no commands/orders were given to him?

4) why did "no one want detainees"?

Volpe• 15 years ago

When did it come "okay" for governments to send kill squads into another country?

palish• 15 years ago

About... 1200 BC.

ovi2564• 15 years ago

In polite society, it's frowned upon. In the real world, they laugh and say "Oh what a sweet kid" when you ask such a question.

MatthewPhillips2• 15 years ago

When said country is harboring (whether intentionally or ignorantly) an international terrorist and mass-murderer.

demallien2• 15 years ago

Well, I don't know about the rest, but question 1 is a direct consequence of unarmed combatants choosing to not wear uniforms. You know, the reason that we use uniforms is so that combatants are easily identified, which indirectly protects civilians, by clearly indicating that they aren't targets. If you're going to hang out with someone that has made a habit of launching attacks against a country whilst running around in civilian clothing, then yeah, you're at risk of becoming collateral damage. Don't do that.

ovi2564• 15 years ago

>unarmed combatants choosing to not wear uniforms

I think you mean armed combatant. An unarmed man being by definition a non-combatant.

The reason western militaries use uniforms is very different from the one you give. The fact that it differentiates conventional combatants from civilians is a consequence of wearing uniforms, not the reason. The original reason going back some centuries was to provide adequate, uniform, protection to poor peasants that lacked good clothing, distinguish own's troops from the enemy and instill "esprit de corps". The whole uniformed troops clearly marked as combatants is today a very Western value. We obviously would like everyone to fight like this, especially because Western armies are very good at this kind of fighting and would win quickly. Instead, they fight like guerillas, hiding among civilians, which multiplies their force and we can go on to complain how it's illegal according to Western customs.

And the whole "protecting civilians" argument doesn't hold water anyway, the ratio of civilian-military casualties keeps going up in the modern era.

shareme• 15 years ago

Ex military..

Enemy combatants are never considered unarmed..it has been that way since WWII..enemy combatants are considered unarmed when we have unarmed them..

No wanted detainees because ahem its Pakistan rules if in their country and have captured enemy combatants alive..

MatthewPhillips2• 15 years ago

These seem like loaded questions. It's appropriate in certain scenarios where the combatant is perceived to be a threat (that someone is unarmed cannot be known until they are killed/apprehended).

In this case Bin Laden used his wives as human shields and only froze after that plan was foiled. Note that the first SEAL used non-deadly force on one of the women and even risked his life in bear-hugging them to protect his teammates.

They said that capture would have been possible had he surrendered immediately; he didn't do this, he used his wives as human shields.

lucasjung2• 15 years ago

>1) when did it suddenly become ok for the military to shoot unarmed combatants?

It has always been OK to shoot enemy combatants who are not actively communicating their intent to surrender; just because someone is not obviously armed, does not mean that he is definitely not a threat. The more important question is, "How do you know if someone is an enemy combatant?" This becomes especially difficult if the enemy does not wear proper identifying clothing or insignia. In the most unambiguous cases, the inherent right to self defense kicks in: if someone has a gun and is acting in a threatening manner, you get to shoot. Beyond that, rules of engagement will define criteria for determining if an individual or unit should be considered hostile ("hostile" has specific meaning, including, "OK to shoot at."). UBL was unambiguously an enemy combatant, so the ROE in this scenario apparently defined him as hostile.

>2) if "no one wanted detainees" why weren't the women with usama killed?

I don't think that phrase was meant to be as general as you are taking it to be. I think what was really meant was, "No one wanted to try to bring detainees out of Pakistan on the helicopters." The choice in re. UBL and his sons was to either kill them on the spot, turn them over to the Pakistanis, or fly them out on the helicopters. Turning them over to the Pakistanis has so many problems that I'm not even going to try to get into it. Trying to fly them out is risky because something could go wrong (e.g. helicopter shot down or crashed), resulting in escape, or capture by the Pakistanis. The highest priority here seems to have been closure, to get UBL out of the picture for sure, and flying him across a mountain range in a helicopter puts that objective at risk.

The same three choices (kill, turn over to Pakistan, or extract) applied to the women, but the need for closure didn't apply, so turning them over to the Pakistanis actually made the most sense.

>3) Is freezing no longer considered a form of surrender (seems especially relevant when no commands/orders were given to him?

Freezing alone has never been considered a form of surrender. Just freezing can indicate indicision, panic, or calculated caution just as easily as it can indicate a desire to surrender. Surrender requires a deliberate indication of an intent to surrender, such as putting your hands in the air or laying down on the ground. The fact that he used his wives as human shields indicated an intent to continue resisting, and he did nothing to adequately indicate that he had changed his mind and wanted instead to surrender. You can switch from fighting to surrendering at any point, right up to the moment before you are killed, but the other side has no obligation to pause at that moment to evaluate if you have changed your mind.

>4) why did "no one want detainees"?

See my answer to #2.

smhinsey2• 15 years ago

The first known officially sanctioned assassination by the United States of an enemy leader was when Roosevelt authorized[1] the Navy to intercept the airplane carrying IJN Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto[2] on an inspection tour of installations in the Solomon Islands. This was in April of 1943.

[1] Operation Vengenace

[2] The planner of the attack on Pearl Harbor, as well as the driving force behind the modern, carrier-centric Japanese Navy

shrikant• 15 years ago

That's some heavy Cryptonomicon memories right there.

martinkallstrom2• 15 years ago

As a non-native English speaker, I wonder: what's the story behind using umlauts in the word "coöperating"? Never seen it before.

philwelch• 15 years ago

Technically it's a diaeresis, not an umlaut. It indicates the syllable break in the word "cooperate". It's not a common thing in written English, but the New Yorker has a certain writing style that calls for that sort of thing.

martinkallstrom2• 15 years ago

You're not joking, here's an extract from the Wikipedia entry [1]:

"Nowadays in English, the diaeresis is normally left out (cooperate), except by The New Yorker, or a hyphen is used (co-operate). It is, however, still common in loanwords such as naïve and Noël."

This made me smile. Thanks! :)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiatus_(linguistics)

shapoopy• 15 years ago

It's pretty deeply preferable to "co-operating," if you ask me.

showerst2• 15 years ago

philwelch is right on, but to give a less technical explanation, it's a signal to pronounce the world (co)(operating) instead of (coop)(erating).

The New Yorker does it for all doubled vowels that aren't pronounced as long vowels.

quattrofan• 15 years ago

Great article and well written, the thing that struck me the most was the references to god, he was killed for "god and country", well Osama thought he was doing his gods work, whose god is right?

Religion is such a giant fail.

rezaprima4• 15 years ago

well, both sides claim to protect their own land and people from invasive other. I don't think there is any religion/ideology that discourage things like "defending property and people".

baha_man• 15 years ago

"I don't think there is any religion/ideology that discourage things like "defending property and people".

Pacifism?

noahc• 15 years ago

There is a strain of Christianity called Anabaptist that are pacifist, and do not believe in using violence or coersion.

Tichy• 15 years ago

What about "turn the other cheek", "love your enemy" and stuff like that?

ovi2564• 15 years ago

From my knowledge of history, the winners god's is always right, just as history is written by the victor. That latter part includes the former, and goes far beyond what we usually acknowledge. It's not only that the victor's reasons for a war are considered just over the loser's. The values of the victor, his cultural framework, are used to judge the loser's and the rest of the world's. And history is written from his viewpoint. It's a meta victory.

wensing2• 15 years ago

That's an overgeneralization. The Old Testament is littered with examples of the Israelites failing in battle because God was not with them at that particular time. But He was still their Jehovah.

zeteo• 15 years ago

Maybe some people falsely believe they are doing God's work when, in fact, they aren't.

sausagefeet2• 15 years ago

"Some"?

burgerbrain7• 15 years ago

You should clarify this. It might sound like you are saying that "some of the people who say they do Gods work are not", instead of the correct "some people believe they are doing god's work. they are not."

Only some people in this world think they are doing that, but they are of course all incorrect.

Edit: ?

amalag• 15 years ago

Sun is called Sol in Spanish, do you think there are two suns?

sliverstorm• 15 years ago

That has always sounded to me like a simple ritualistic/habitual intonation, rather than an honest appeal to the Lord in Heaven.

I could be wrong.

shalinmangar• 15 years ago

From the article: "They observed that residents of the compound burned their trash, instead of putting it out for collection, and concluded that the compound lacked a phone or an Internet connection."

How do you go from burning trash to lack of phone or internet?

sambeau• 15 years ago

They didn't. Note the use of 'and' not 'therefore'.

lawnchair_larry• 15 years ago

"For God and country-Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo."

"We should all go to Mass tonight," he said.

That definitely ruins it for me.

nickpp• 15 years ago

Soldiers and politicians. Did you expect works of science from them? Ones kill for a living, the other ones lie for a living. Definitely expected.

abdulhaq• 15 years ago

Funnily enough, according to wikipedia, Geronimo was a prominent Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache who fought against Mexico and the United States for their expansion into Apache tribal lands for several decades.

I don't think his assassins had that in mind though.

Don't get me wrong BTW, I'm firmly one the 900 million muslims who are against the killing of innocents.

sunchild• 15 years ago

It's hard to assign meaning to those kinds of code words. After all, they're specifically chosen not to betray their meaning.

I know that the Apache were upset by the implications, and there is some historical irony lurking in it, but I wouldn't take that too far, esp. for a code word. If I'm not mistaken, "Geronimo" is probably best known as a battle cry that Americans learned from the movies. I wouldn't be shocked to learn that most Americans don't know anything about the man, Geronimo.

EDIT: Also, on Biden's comment about attending mass: that's just Biden being a good Catholic. Fortunately, Joe Biden isn't the type to actually demand that others practice his religion.

The religious aspect of this story didn't bother me, because these guys, like all Americans, have the right to express their religious beliefs as long as they don't force everyone to follow them. The policy of killing bin Laden is supported by many people who don't belong to a religion. Bin Laden's attacks killed all sorts of different people. It's hard to argue that the Obama administration was carrying out a religious vendetta with this operation.

I read this article in my office a stone's throw from Ground Zero. I found the details about the policy-making and military operation fascinating. I'm glad I didn't wake up that morning to read that we leveled a suburb in Pakistan with 32 2000lb guided bombs (and we think we might have gotten Bin Laden)!

timsally• 15 years ago

That's some awfully selective quoting. The Vice President made the comment about Mass as the troops were getting out of Pakistan safely. Regardless of whether you agree with the mission, seem's like a pretty reasonable thing to be thankful for. Religious ceremonies are one way that billions of people express such feelings of thanks.

rezaprima4• 15 years ago

this. And they are thankful for been chosen as the victor side. Understandable.

kanamekun• 15 years ago

Many soldiers (and their commanders) are highly superstitious and/or turn to a higher power. This dates back centuries, if not millennia: http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_War/Superstitions/Sup...

A number of athletes are the same way: http://paneech.com/2009/05/5-athletes-who-took-superstitions...

When your life and/or livelihood regularly depends on factors that you don't control, it's not uncommon to engage in dealmaking with a higher power in order to develop a sense of control over the unknown.

shawndumas• 15 years ago

print version -- http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/08/110808fa_fact_...

davidw• 15 years ago

"The owner of the house, who we reached for comment, had been residing in the UK, and was not aware of current events, and was distraught to discover the state of the home on his return. 'Between the crashed helicopter, burned animal stalls, and bullet marks everywhere, I can safely say I will not be utilizing AirBnB again - the place is completely trashed', Haddad told us"

flipbrad3• 15 years ago

the US military invades Bin Laden's compound, calmly shoots him, searches the place, takes his body, disposes it at sea, whilst america's top brass follows... and the only recording of any of this is two DNA shots and a video taken from a drone 5km above it all - not even one photo of the face? He's not even recognisable to the soldiers sent in on the mission, so one has to lie down next to him as a human ruler (yep - about 4 inches bigger than your are, Joe!)

Bollocks. Pics or it didn't happen.

Also: this article is gloating, snuff pornography that betrays a total lack of journalistic instinct. When a journalist explicitly makes excuses for discrepancies in the story he is reporting, rather than examining them, you know that an article was not worth your time and attention.

joejohnson9• 15 years ago

I don't know why you're getting down votes. This story seems well written, but for the majority of the story (all of the important parts), it relies only on information released by the government. Why should we believe this story? It seems to be a perfect tale that can't be corroborated now.

showerst2• 15 years ago

The downed helicopter is certainly evidence that _something_ happened involving a US operation in Pakistan.

There was a statement mourning his death that has been accepted as originating with Al Qaeda (by the US Govt, organizations that monitor militant activity, as well as parties like Al-Jazeera).

By the situation's very nature there are only a handful of people with the facts, and they're all going to work for either the US or Pakistani governments.

At some point one applies Occam's razor, but you're never going to convince everyone, especially those who don't _want_ to believe (See the 9-11 truthers.)

I'd say that the evidence is conclusive, but I suppose one could work up a conspiracy involving dozens (hundreds?) of people in the administration from the president down to rank & file soldiers.

As for the photos, There was supposedly a heated debate within the administration about releasing the pictures, but it was decided that the harm they would do to the US' image was worse than the value of a photo as a piece of evidence.

The piece's author not questioning the discrepancies can be put down to believing in a "Fog of war" in the exact recollections and communications, plus the fact that not a single difference was really material to the story. I think it's interesting that they mentioned them at all.

jamesteow• 15 years ago

Al Qaeda confirmed his death.

dennisgorelik• 15 years ago

Al Qaeda could confirm Bin Laden's death in order to protect Bin Laden from future assassination attempts.

Whether Bin Laden is killed or not - is not clear.

But what is clear is that US government has muddy operation on their hands. They clearly hiding something about that story.

They intentionally killed main witness (Osama) even though it wouldn't be any harder to capture him alive.

The reason of why there are no photos is also not clear.

nate_meurer8• 15 years ago

> "Bollocks. Pics or it didn't happen."

The Obama administration doesn't care whether you or anybody else believes them. They are clearly not milking this for PR. They said it very simply: we killed him, we dumped his body in the ocean, no you may not see pictures. Go ahead and forget about the whole thing.

Edit: grammar

mcantelon4• 15 years ago

>The Obama administration doesn't care whether you or anybody else believes them.

True, they behaved like an unaccountable empire given that 1) Americans have paid a lot of money to exact revenge on Bin Laden and 2) the hit squad operation was illegal under international law.

flipbrad3• 15 years ago

I'm sorry, I stand by my statement: this is puff piece journalism. It's advanced, well-written churnalism.

pointyhat3• 15 years ago

We will never know what really happened, just what people want us to know.

pointyhat3• 15 years ago

I've been watching this post and the karma on it is up and down like mad. Peaking at 5, and a low of 1.

It's surprising how many people think that what they are told is the full picture.

Having worked for a couple of nefarious defence-related organisations over the years, I've observed that it's quite simply true that propaganda is just as easy to get into people's minds as facts.

joejohnson9• 15 years ago

I am surprised there aren't more comments like the parent comment. Are people really going to swallow this whole thing without any corroboration by another source? I guess I can understand that; it's easier to believe what you read. However, when people (in the comments here) raise objections or have opposing views than the picture being painted in this article, they are being harshly downvoted. I would have hoped for more skepticism on HN. :(

zwieback• 15 years ago

I was a little surprised that they used wire-link fence in the simulated compound. Regardless of whether it caused the first helicopter to crash it seems to me a real wall would have made the training more effective.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that defense contractors have already come up with quickly deployable simulated walls.

runjake3• 15 years ago

I think the article's a bit wrong on that part. DEVGRU, Special Operations outfits, and even conventional US forces have access to walls and don't use chain-link simulations.

bdunbar4• 15 years ago

Chain-link can be taken down and moved quicker than a standard wall.

This used to be an important factor when you didn't want 'stuff' to be seen by satellites, needed to setup and take things down quickly.

I don't know if it's still a factor today.

joejohnson9• 15 years ago

I'm disappointed in the discussion here. Any comment that remotely alludes to any information that might contradict the US gov official story is being downvoted. Why are people resistant to entertain opposing viewpoints on this story? It seems unscientific (and bad journalistic practice) to rely only on one source.

mcantelon4• 15 years ago

Especially given the number of times the US military has lied to the public.

arjunnarayan• 15 years ago

Amid all this collective celebration, I would like to point out one excerpt (that nobody seems to have mentioned here) that leaves me disgusted:

"The C.I.A. intensified its intelligence-collection efforts, and, according to a recent report in the Guardian, a physician working for the agency conducted an immunization drive in Abbottabad, in the hope of acquiring DNA samples from bin Laden’s children. (No one in the compound ultimately received any immunizations.)"

From a global health policy perspective, doctors and campaigners in third world countries already face huge uphill battles in education and decreasing fears about vaccinations. It probably isn't amiss to say that in helping fuel the FUD about vaccinations being a CIA plot, more people have been killed due to these fears than in acts of terrorism in the last decade.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-fallout-from-the-...

yid2• 15 years ago

There's a huge difference between vaccinations themselves being a CIA plot, and a vaccination drive being a CIA plot. I have no problem with the latter.

CamperBob3• 15 years ago

The people who need the vaccinations won't see the difference.

That little detail would have been better kept under wraps. Nobody needed to know about it.

Goladus• 15 years ago

Slightly more important (which isn't saying much) is the difference between the vaccination drive being a CIA plot and the CIA exploiting its existence.

vinodkd• 15 years ago

Great article.

I had to comment on this bit, tho:

"ordered sandwich platters from Costco"

Nice to see the White house doesn't splurge willy-nilly :))

vegai• 15 years ago

"At one point, Biden, who had been fingering a rosary, turned to Mullen, the Joint Chiefs chairman. “We should all go to Mass tonight,” he said."

Not to ask forgiveness for breaking a commandement, I would wager.

Getting Bin Laden: What happened that night in Abbottabad

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