What really happened in the

‘Bin Laden raid’ at Abbottabad,

Pakistan?Pakistan?

An exercise in critical thinking

Official account • Chief executive of operation: CIA director Leon Panetta.

• Navy Seal operation, planned months in advance, given go-ahead by Barrack Obama: 25 people went on the ground from two Blackhawk helicopters.

• Took place at a fortified compound on the outskirts of Abbottabad, between 00.00 and 01.30 local time on Monday morning - at its centre a large, three-storey building with concrete high walls up to 5.5m (18ft) high, barbed wire and concrete high walls up to 5.5m (18ft) high, barbed wire and CCTV cameras - and few windows.

• The compound - valued at about $1m (£600,000) - had two security gates but no phone or internet lines running into the building.

• Its occupants were so concerned about security that they were reported to burn their rubbish rather than leave it out for collection as other residents in the area did.

• 40-minute firefight, ending in death of Bin Laden ("Geronimo EKIA”)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13257330

• Who was killed?: – Bin laden, 3 men and 1 woman.

– thought to include Bin Laden's trusted courier, his brother and an adult son of Bin Laden.

– Bin Laden shot once in the head (above left eye) and once in the chest.

• Who was injured?• Who was injured?– 2 women

– Including a woman... Bin Laden's 4th wife, rushed the US assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed.

– Also his (younger) daughter? (now in a military hospital in Pakistan)

• Who was living in the compound?– 17-18 other people.

• The event documented on Navy Seal’s head mounted cameras.

• Mr Panetta said the Seals had "full authority to kill Bin Laden".

• The CIA claim they did not now for sure that Bin Laden was on the premisses – but that their intelligence made was on the premisses – but that their intelligence made it highly likely.

• Both US and Pakistani officials assert Pakistan was kept in the dark about the operation and reports suggest the tension lingered as the US team made a high-speed dash to Afghanistan.

Intriguing fact

• The compound is in a residential district called Bilal Town, home to a number of retired military officers.

• It is just 1km from the Pakistan Military Academy, an elite military training centre described as Pakistan's equivalent to Britain's Sandhurst or the West Point academy in the US.Sandhurst or the West Point academy in the US.

• Pakistan's army chief is a regular visitor to the academy, where he attends graduation parades, and it is likely the area would have had a constant and significant military presence and checkpoints.

• “Bin Laden was hiding almost under the nose of the Pakistani military, which has a major garrison in Abbottabad and the Pakistani version of West Point” (United States Military Academy).

The villa complex

Photos after the raid

Real Time Show for US Leadership

• President Obama and his security team watched the operation in real time from the White House.

• CIA officials had turned a windowless seventh-floor conference room at Langley, Virginia, into a command centre for the operation, from where Leon Panetta passed on details to the president and his advisers.passed on details to the president and his advisers.

• "We have a visual on Geronimo," Mr Panetta said after the troops entered the compound, according to the New York Times.

• Minutes later, he told them: "Geronimo EKIA [Enemy Killed In Action]."

• President Obama added: "We got him."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13257330

In the White House : Official Photo Release

President Obama, Vice President Joseph Biden, Secretary of State

Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

Death confirmation

• A senior US intelligence official told reporters

at a Department of Defense briefing that Bin

Laden's body was identified visually at the

scene by operatives, by name by a woman at scene by operatives, by name by a woman at

the scene believed to be his wife, by CIA

specialists using photos and finally later on

Monday by experts who found "virtually a

100% DNA match of the body against DNA of

several Bin Laden family members".

Burial at Sea

• Bin Laden's body was flown to Afghanistan and later to the US aircraft carrier, the Carl Vinson, in the north Arabian Sea.

• Mr Carney said the body was prepared for • Mr Carney said the body was prepared for burial "in conformance with Islamic precepts and practice", then placed in a weighted bag and dropped into the water from the vessel's deck. Officials said this was to avoid his grave becoming a shrine.

Authorities Evaluation of Raid

Also Counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, called it:

"one of the gutsiest calls by any president in recent memory"

• Widespread praise for Obama among both

Republicans and Democrats.

Popular Effect in US of the Raid

• Support for President Barack Obama has risen sharply following the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. military forces in Pakistan, with a majority now approving of his overall job performance, as well as his handling of foreign policy, the war in Afghanistan and the threat of terrorism, according to the latest New the threat of terrorism, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

• Support for the president rose significantly among both Republicans and independents. In all, 57 percent said they now approved of the president's job performance, up from 46 percent last month.

Some reactions in Pakistan

after the eventafter the event

Funeral Protests

First press photos a fake

(circulating in MANY credible

newspapers – e.g. the Telegraph)

But it was a proven fake

Initial official claims, now contradicted

• 1. Osama bin Laden was armed and died in a firefight after resisting.– "He was engaged in a firefight with those that entered the area of the house he was in," said

John Brennan, White House security adviser.

• 2. Barack Obama's counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan claimed that Bin Laden used his Yemeni wife Amal Ahmed al-Sadah, 27, as a "human shield" when confronted.

– "There was family at that compound and there was a female who was in fact in the line of fire – "There was family at that compound and there was a female who was in fact in the line of fire that reportedly was used as a shield to shield Bin Laden from the incoming fire.“ He added: "I think it really just speaks to just how false his narrative has been over the years.“ (Brennan)

• 3. Bin Laden's son Khalid was killed in the raid– The name of the son was changed to Hamza in the transcript.

• 4. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and senior White House officials watched the raid unfold live on monitors.

• 5. A photograph of the death would be released, according to the CIA director.

• Brennan said on Monday: "We were able to monitor in a real-time basis the progress of the operation from its commencement to its time on target to the extraction of the remains and to then the egress off of the target… we were able to monitor the situation in real time and were able to have regular updates and to ensure that we had real-time visibility into the progress of the operation. I'm not going to go into details about what type of visuals we had or what type of feeds that were there, but it was – it gave us the ability to actually track it on an ongoing basis.“actually track it on an ongoing basis.“

• But Carney said on Tuesday the updates were "minute-by-minute" and "they were looking at and listening to those updates". CIA director Leon Panetta told PBS on Tuesday: "Once those teams went into the compound, I can tell you that there was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes that we really didn't know just exactly what was going on“ (the time when Bin Laden was shot)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/04/osama-bin-laden-killing-us-story-change?intcmp=239

Pros for Official Story

• 1. Public, detailed claims by Obama and US government.

• 2. Too risky to fake it. Imagine the consequences.

• 3. World political leaders in apparent agreement.

• 4. World press in apparent agreement. No clear 'counter-press‘ – at least at this point.

• 5. Claims of DNA and ‘facial profiling’ confirmation.• 5. Claims of DNA and ‘facial profiling’ confirmation.

• 6. Plausible account of planning and operation.

• 7. Calls for revenge by 'Al Qaeda' men: "top al-Qaeda ideologue promised revenge for bin Laden's death. The commentator, going by the online name Assad al-Jihad2, posted on websites a long eulogy for the al-Qaeda leader and promised to "avenge the killing of the Sheik of Islam".

• 8. Bin Laden’s younger daughter is claimed to be in a military hospital in Pakistan and says that her father was killed without a weapon and without resistance.

This local boy claims he met the Bin

Laden family

Cons• 1. There are good reasons to believe that Bin Laden died years ago. (Pakistani

and other Middle East analystis have argued this for a long time. Also Bhuto).

• 2. There have been no Bin Laden broadcasts of any firm credibility for years. All broadcasts since 2001 have been controversial.

• 3. Photos fake, and other contradictions in the official account of what happened. (Explained as due to ‘complexity’ of the issue under time pressure.)

• 4. The DNA analysis, hasn't been open to the public yet, irrespective of how plausible this scenario sounds: http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/27739824/detail.html

5. Claims by Presidents and other government officials are often false and • 5. Claims by Presidents and other government officials are often false and misleading (e.g. financial regulation, Gaddafi’s son’s assassination)

• 6. Residents in Abbottabad are skeptical.

• 7. "Given the sensitive complexity of the relationship with Pakistan’s military and security forces — and our administration’s disinclination to do things in the open — we have no particular reason to invest much confidence in their own account of what happens, and plenty of reasons to distrust its completeness" (source for this view here: http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/bin-ladens-code-name-was-geronimo/)

• 8. There are excellent real-politik political reasons for taking responsibility for his death, particularly in preparation for elections, winding down operations in Afghanistan, or initiating a new campaign against Pakistan.

Evidence of Bin Laden’s death in 2001

• 1. Up until mid-December 13, 2001, the CIA had regularly been intercepting messages between bin Laden and his people. At that time, however, the messages suddenly stopped, and the CIA has never again intercepted a message.never again intercepted a message.

• 2. Second, on December 26, 2001, a leading Pakistani newspaper published a story reporting that bin Laden had died in mid-December, adding:

“A prominent official in the Afghan Taleban movement . . . stated . . . that he had himself attended the funeral of bin Laden and saw his face prior to burial.”

• 3. bin Laden had kidney disease.

– He had been treated for it in the American Hospital in Dubai in July 2001, at which time he reportedly ordered two dialysis machines to take home.

– CBS News reported that he was being given kidney – CBS News reported that he was being given kidney dialysis treatment in a hospital in Pakistan the day before 9/11.

– In January of 2001, Dr. Sanjay Gupta said – based on a video of bin Laden that had been made in either late November or early December of 2001 – that he appeared to be in the last stages of kidney failure.

• 4. In July of 2002, CNN reported that bin

Laden’s bodyguards had been captured in

February of that year, adding: “Sources believe

that if the bodyguards were captured away that if the bodyguards were captured away

from bin Laden, it is likely the most-wanted

man in the world is dead.”

TestimonyTestimony in 2002, from people in position to know, that bin Laden was dead, or

probably so. These people included:

• President Musharraf of Pakistan;

• Dale Watson, the head of the FBI’s counterterrorism unit;

• Oliver North, who said: “I'm certain that Osama is dead. . . And so are all the other guys I stay in touch with”;Oliver North, who said: “I'm certain that Osama is dead. . . And so are all the other guys I stay in touch with”;

• President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan;

• Sources within Israeli intelligence, who said that any new messages from bin Laden were “probably fabrications”;

• Sources within Pakistani intelligence, who “confirmed the death of . . . Osama Bin Laden” and “attributed the reasons behind Washington's hiding news on the death of Osama Bin Laden to the desire of the hawks of the American administration to use the issue of al-Qaida and international terrorism to invade Iraq.”

There are Good Grounds

for Demanding Prooffor Demanding Proof

4th May I suggested:Rank ordering of proofs

• ...quality of 'proof' that Bin Laden was in the villa in rank order: – 1. DNA record, cross-checked to known DNA database.

– 2. Video footage (e.g. before shooting, so as not to incite emotional reaction). incite emotional reaction).

– 3. Multiple photos, vastly reducing the likelihood of Photoshopping.

– 4. Single photograph before disfiguration in compound.

– 5. Single photo after shooting with disfiguration (a very weak last place, due to potential for manufacturing). The best choice for the Government (given the emotional reaction problem) turns out to be the best type of proof. 1 and 2 would be easy to procure.

BUT…

No Evidence to be Made Public

Protestors saying it was a set-up to build a military case

against Pakistan and its nuclear program

Many questions raised in Pakistan (and

elsewhere) about the political real-elsewhere) about the political real-

politik motive

We have two competing, and on the

face of it plausible, accounts.

Which to believe?Which to believe?