Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad: Pakistani Incompetence or Complicity?
It’s probably just a coincidence that the US finally got Osama bin Laden at a time when its relationship with Pakistan is at a post-9/11 low. President Obama said the discovery of OBL came from a lead first generated last August.
Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.
Plans for the operation intensified over a series of Principals meetings in March and April.
The president chaired no fewer than five national security council meetings on this topic – on March 14th, March 29th, April 12th, April 19th and April 28th.
“When a case had been made that this was a critical target we began to prepare this mission in conjunction with the US military,” a senior administration official said.
At 8:20am on Friday, April 29th in the Diplomatic Room, President Obama met with National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, White House chief of staff William Daley, White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan and deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough and gave the order for the operation.
But we did not give Pakistan a heads up.
Which is why the details Jane Perlez lays out–notably, that OBL’s hideout was nearly adjacent to the Pakistani equivalent of West Point, where General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani proclaimed victory over terrorism last month–raise so many questions about whether Pakistan knew OBL was hiding out in this compound.
[OBL] was killed in Abbottabad, a city of about 500,000, in a large and highly secured compound that, a resident of the city said, sits virtually adjacent to the grounds of a military academy. In an ironic twist, the academy was visited just last month by the Pakistani military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, where he proclaimed that Pakistan had “cracked” the forces of terrorism, an assessment that was greeted with skepticism in Washington.
Update: Here’s an ABC video from the mansion, also showing how close the military academy is.
And Perlez describes the curious silence from top Pakistani leaders about OBL’s death.
After the killing of Bin Laden became public in Pakistan, an ISI official confirmed his death but then insisted, contrary to President Obama’s statement, that he was killed in a joint United States-Pakistani operation, apparently an effort to show that Pakistan knew about the operation in advance.
On Monday, General Kayani, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan, and the ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, met in Islamabad but had not issued any statement more than six hours after President Obama’s announcement of Bin Laden’s death.
Finally, Perlez notes that we picked up a key al Qaeda operative in Abbottabad in February, just as the Raymond Davis was souring our relations with Pakistan significantly.
A Qaeda operative, Umar Patek, an Indonesian involved in the Bali bombings in 2002, was captured in a house in Abbottabad in February where he was protected by a Qaeda courier, who worked as a clerk at the city post office.
As relations with Pakistan have grown strained over the last several months, they have insisted we just need to trust them. Until we learn how it is that they missed this mansion specially built for OBL’s family, it seems further suspicion, not trust, is the appropriate stance.
Someone in Pakistan military had to know. But also, there is no way US could have gotten choppers into that part of the country without being detected.
Pakistan has jet fighters and all the radar that goes with them. We would have had some shot down helicopters without help from somebody.
On a side note, I can’t wait to hear “what took Obama so long?”
Well, the Guardian captured Palin’s Facebook posting on this op and noted she praised the troops and intel services, thanked God and said nothing about Obama, said “God Bless America” and then noted “No credit for the Obama administration from Palin, which seems both churlish and in character.”
So, does that count?
Hilarious, that NBC is putting Rummy on the tube about this, when Rummy rejected pulling a similar op in 2005. That, and NBC’s Miklaczewski is reporting the military is attributing the lead to the courtier to a Gitmo detainee. So – Gitmo works!
More to the point, it’s hard to believe the Pakistani government didn’t notice a pretty palatial compound down the street from the military academy, and the lack of telephone and internet access. (No phone, I can understand, given the way the Third World has gone from no phones at all to everyone wireless. No internet, too’s a giveaway of sorts – if anyone had been looking or hadn’t been told to not look. I suspect we’ll learn more about this in the future, but right now it’s an open question and I’m leaning toward complicit.
No, I am expecting something more retarded.
Give them time. It’s still early on a Monday morning.
Note my next post: I think they got this intel from Abu Farah al-Libi, who was the last of HVDs who picked up who went through CIA custody. He was captured in May 2005.
And
killed to shut him updied by his own hand in a Libyan prison, right about the time it seemed Deadeye Dick was going to have to deal with allegations he’d had al-Libi tortured, IIRC.Wrong al-Libi. That was Ibn Sheikh al-Libi.
Don’t assume that. Helicopters can travel well below the level at which they can be picked up by radar, even assuming that the radar in question is not being spoofed.
I think both sides will be lying about Pakistani involvment over the next few days. I’m inclined to believe the USG on this: We told nobody, and even here is was very closly held.
Boxturtle (Wonder what took Obama so long? Bush left him with this perfectly set up, I’m sure)
Obama didn’t know about this until last August. If he was going to use this for political gain, then would have been the time to do it — either that, or wait until the summer of 2012. But since the “bump” from this will dissipate soon, the main long-lasting political effect has been to show which Republicans are serious presidential contenders and which are not — namely, those who were gracious enough to immediately credit Obama (Romney) are serious and those who wouldn’t even mention his name (Bachmann, Palin) are not.
Yeah, credit where credit is due, Obama could have rushed things and gone in before the election. Or he could have held off for a year or so and got the boost for 2012.
Boxturtle (Wonder who the “new” OBL will be…Al-Zarwai? Kadaffy? Trump?)
Imagine how this will make Trump look if he continues to insist that he wants to inspect Obama’s birth certificate further.
Pretty much the same as he does now. Medium batshit crazy with a dead wombat on his head.
But did you notice that Obama took a couple of potshots at Trump over the weekend? None of the other GOP potentials have got that kind of attention. Perhaps Obama is worried. He can beat the fully batshit crazies, but a lot of folks might pick a medium batshit crazy over him.
Boxturtle (If I were Obama I’d be worrried about a writein campaign for Micky Mouse)
Your presumption is that Obama wanted the Dems to win the 2010 mid-term elections.
Obama left Bush appointees in charge of DoD, Treasury & the Fed, he continued Bush’s bank bailout plan, Bush’s Iraq withdrawal plan, Bush’s tax cuts for the rich and McCain has said that he would have had the same policy in Afghanistan.
Obama implemented conservative policy for his first two years, and now, even this policy looks reasonable compared to what the crazies in the Republican House want to do.
Obama has served the elite well and will be rewarded with an unappealing Republican opponent in 2012.
I wouldn’t be so sure.
Pakistan has AWACs, and an integrated air defense system.
Also, target was within Pakistan air defense intercept zone for the national capital.
I’m NOT sure. I’d be willing to bet we could slip heli’s in to do this, but I don’t know if we did. Awacs cannot penetrate ground clutter. If we kept below about 200ft, they wouldn’t have seen us with those.
Boxturtle (We sold them those awacs. We could spoof them if we needed to do so)
It would be no big deal to spoof the Pakistani IFF, seeing as how it’s prettyfrickinlikely we sold it to them in the first place. Or a maintenance failure. Or a bribe/blackmail to get the operator to look away from the screen. Or maybe the Pakistanis have the same sleepy air traffic controllers working for them as we do here – the raid went in at about 3 AM local time, the best time to sleep on the job. Moreover, more than a few of the Pakistani helos used in counterterra strikes have been crewed/maintained by retired US military (the retired guys flew those models of birds when they were active, so who better to work on them now?) – so the locals could have believed they were their own birds.
In the end, there are any number of ways the USG could have gotten the helos to land where they did w/o leaking what was going on. WE’ll eventually figure out which is right, but right now it hardly matters other than to provide a reason to argue.
Marc Ambinder (who has great JSOC sources) speculates:
I still have a nagging feeling that Kayani and Pasha’s visit to DC two weeks ago isn’t unrelated to yesterday’s events. Media portrayed tone of meetings to be hostile.
Perhaps ducks were getting lined up.
A “Pakistan didn’t know” narrative would be necessary whether they did or didn’t know.
Thanks for the link to the Ambinder piece, and for the reply.
(Thanks too to Scribe and BoxTurtle for their input.)
I’m with you. After Tora Bora, there was no way we were going to tell Pakistan. Particularly not with him being this close to the military academy.
Perhaps we just took ISI out of the loop – the Pak intel folks that told Osama to leave the training camp after they were told that Clinton’s missiles were to hit in 20 minutes.
Last Tuesday the Guardian had a story with allegedly new info about bin Laden’s evasion of capture at Tora Bora, saying he’d escaped into another part of Afghanistan, not across the border to Pakistan. The info supposedly came from Guantanamo. Might the leak that launched the story have been a mis-direction play?
Wow. I see I fell asleep too early yesterday…lots to catch up on…
To me, “suspicion” seems to be the only sensible response to many things.
Complicity!
The commentators in India (which hates Pakistan) have not been slow to notice this:
Meanwhile, watch as former Bushie (and Reaganite) Elliot Abrams acts like an idiot: “Obama wants more than fair share of credit..unable to get messaging right.. amateurish delay.”
As even conservative commentator Daniel Drezner Tweeted in response:
“List of people reacting to bin Laden’s death in a politically disastrous way: Hamas, Elliott Abrams.”
And while i’m sure the ISI was very close to OBL, I doubt that anybody there knew where he actually was. It looks to me as though the only folks besides the residents who knew OBL was there were the messengers.
Boxturtle (I bet everybody is yelling at everybody else at ISI HQ this morning)
The border between Pakistan and Afghanistan was drawn arbitrarily by Western powers. We chose to attack the country named Afghanistan because there was not an official alliance with it, while there was with Pakistan.
anybody think this is all a hoax? It amazes me how fast people glom onto a news story as though it were true when we’ve learned so often they aren’t. I recall Bhutto insisting binladen was dead years ago, then she was shot.
i remain skeptical.
Only fools take things at face value! Remain skeptical! No head, no platter? As with Saddam’s death, so to go all the little secrets down the sewer of history? No trial, no risk of affidavits or exposure. “Clean” they say!
A somber day in fact. No need to cheer as many did when the Towers fell! Death is not fun.
Right, and according to the article linked below from last night comments on FDL a spokesman for the US govt said his body would be disposed of in a manner that accorded with Islamic tradition. Dumped at sea? Is that haram? I kinda doubt it. That picture of Che’s body comes to mind, and others… Usually they parade these trophies all over the media. Why discuss it as though it’s real? Fallin right into that trap, imho.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/handling-osama-bin-ladens-body-in-islamic-tradition-us/784445/
Buried at sea . . . something Pontius Pilate wished he had done?
Easy to understand that move (or fiction, either way it works).
It’s good to keep an open mind.
Just not so open your brains fall out.
:-)
back atcha
I say incompetent complicity. Oh and @9, Bachman really is beyond vetting, I am hearing she was born in Canada.
All of the chit chat is irrelevant..the fact that the SOB is dead and with his 72 virgins in hell is good enough for me, and most all Americans..Fly your Fl;ag..celebrate..enjoy the positive energy in the air..It has been a very long time since this country has been able to take a deep breath of good news..enjoy the euphoria
WRT skepticism, my usual rule of thumb on these kinds of stories is that the only thing we know for sure is that whatever the USG is saying is a lie. Other than that, who knows.
glad to see i’m not the only one…
Scahill on dn reminds of potential Raymond Davis connection.
We have the same problem with this story as we do with the Libyan story of the killing of Gaddafi’s son. Only one source, and one with motivation to claim this sort of victory. That will be sorted out when Osama bin Laden does not emerge somewhere waving and saying “I’m alive”. Based on public statements on al-Jazeera, the Afghanistan Taliban apparently think the report is true.
With the Arab Awakening and this event, President Obama has now been given the domestic political position to unwind the culture of fear that surrounded foreign policy in the aftermath of 9/11. How he uses this opportunity will be how history judges his Presidency on foreign policy.
Well put THD.
We got the bastard! Hooray! Congratulations to President Obama, the intelligence community, the operation planners, and to those who executed the mission so bravely and efficiently.
It was heartening to how so many of our citizens were celebrating excitedly and patriotically last night – at ground zere, at universities, at the White House and other locations.
Morning pundits noted that so many of these celebrants were young people. Of course, like me, the old people were asleep in bed.
homer http://www.altara.blogspot.com
Reply to kittykitty
“”anybody think this is all a hoax?
i remain skeptical.
It is a good thing to remain skeptical.
Hopefully, truth will out soon.
US intelligence (CIA, DoD, NSA) was clueless.
A walled (topped with barbed-wire) compound, eight times larger than anything else in the area, and our intelligence agencies don’t know what it is used for?
America could disband it’s entire intelligence network, hire a couple of guys to read foreign newspapers and we’d know more about the world.
If the compound of Bin Laden was right next to their “West Point,” I think the reasoning of the terrorists may have been that the location would preclude any air attacks. Imagine if America bombed the Bin Laden headquarters and there had been collateral damage to the Pakistani military post. What if it couldn’t then be proven that Bin Laden had even been in the compound? I am not sure that the location here demonstrates Pakistani collaboration with the terrorists.
A fair point. And perhaps one of the reasons we did this w/SEALS rather than a drone.
Pakistan helped finance 9/11.
I think it’s worth distinguishing between the ISI, the Pakistani military and “Pakistan”. I’d note that Perlez talks not about whether “Pakistan” knew, but whether “elements of the Pakistani spy agency knew”.
No need to start destabilizing civilian government in Pakistan over this. If we pull a billion in military/intelligence aid, all the better.
For that matter, and I’m a crank for saying it, but I’d argue that the low point of relations with Pakistan was back in 2002-2007, when we had a very tight relationship with its unpopular dictator. This morning’s NPR report mentioned that it’s right-wing pro-military papers that are trying to use this as an assault on Pakistan’s sovereignty. Asif Ali Zardari’s silence isn’t that curious to me. He probably doesn’t know much and hesitates to say anything in fear salacious details of what the US did might discredit any mild expression of relief he made. He may also fear that angry elements of ISI could see him as a suitable object of vengeance.
Juan Cole has a somewhat similar take, though actually surmising cooperation from the Pakistani government:
http://www.juancole.com/2011/05/obama-and-the-end-of-al-qaeda.html
Juan indeed does a good summary – and the 3 Pakistan gov idea is one I buy into – so informing the President of Pakistan and the military, but not ISI – makes a lot of sense.
His history of how Osama was once our guy who had no job post the fall of the USSR should be required reading.
No witnesses; only the word of USG; body buried at sea, in honor of Islam practices (you got to be kidding that we would bury at sea, the only evidence to prove he is dead). This is wrong on so many levels. My guess – had him all along and pulled him out of deep freeze to help Obama in 2012 and get back at Pakistan.
This is just too convenient, IMHO.
late add-on: listen to the news and all you hear is the USA is a hero for killing him
Right. Such a farce. I predicted there would be no body and sure enough I hear ten minutes later that they buried him at sea. lol. Such a farce. Osama Fucking bin Laden has been killed and they vanish the body within 24 hours? All because of concern over Muslim burial rules??? Pleeezze. If this passes your smell test, your an idiot or a shill. And just when the market was on the ropes, they get as good a day as they can hope for; google news had 1500 articles predicting a good day for the market before the market opened. But let’s not include that in our thinking. Lol. Let’s all discuss the “interesting” minutiae, giving the US government every benefit of the doubt, and let’s all ignore the enormous pile of shit in the middle of the living room.
Thank you!!!!! Quite agree. When my roommate dragged me in to watch the tv with the “serious people” intoning crap about ObL being “killed,” my immediate reaction was to laugh out of loud and say: what a load of bullshit. ObL either was killed or died years and years ago. I don’t believe it. Per usual, my roommate thinks I’m a crazed kook.
I think that I live in *reality.* As someone posted earlier on this thread Benazir Bhutto stated years ago that ObL had already died (remember how ill he was? and I don’t think that was a lie, either), and the whooops buh-bye Benazir!
Sure, pull the other one, Sparky.
Does anyone seriously believe that OBL’s entire body was “buried at sea?” I don’t. Or rather, I think some of the body was, but certainly not his head.
I think the reason Osama was shot in the eye was to preserve as much of the head as possible for “identification.” You don’t search for someone for 10 years, and give up all concrete evidence to prove the death.
I lived in Kashmir (India) for close to a year and have had numerous Muslim friends all of my life from various countries. First I ever heard about the vast great “Muslim tradition” of burial at sea. And now all of a sudden – after years of nasty racist bigotry spewed at Muslims everywhere by the USG and the US media – Team USA is suddenly so “solicitious” about alleged Muslim traditions that no one’s ever heard about before???
Spare me, but I agree with you, eCAHN and kittykat: this stinks, and frankly I don’t believe it AT ALL.
There’s nothing to “celebrate,” frankly, and at any rate, *even IF* Team USA allegedly “killed” ObL, why would I “celebrate” it?? Frankly I don’t get that one, either.
Too convenient; too easy; too much bullshit as usual.
My take: the 2012 POTUS campaign just kicked into high gear. The end.
Two reasons:
(a) Devout Muslims believe the body must be buried within 24 hours.
(b) They couldn’t find a country that would accept the body for burial. Not even the Saudis would accept it.
(and also (c) it doesn’t give followers a way to make pilgrimages to his grave)
This may qualify as the most credulous statement yet this year: “But we did not give Pakistan a heads up.” Does anyone sincerely believe that the US merely “discovered” Bin Laden? Pakistan told them where he was, because, as had long been suspected, they’d been sheltering him for years–and, for reasons unknown, decided to cut him loose. Pakistan, via the ISS, would have known about the operation from the very beginning–because they initiated it.
There’s no way the ISI could have had anything to do with sheltering this guy for all this time.
And by the way, I’ve got some really nice ocean-front property for sale. In Kansas. And you’d better act quickly. At these prices, it won’t last long…
If not the ISI, was Osama really a CIA asset – he said the plan was to make the US weak by having more MIC spending – that could have been a Cheney idea! :-)
I don’t know about “asset,” but surely there are/were people both in our gov’t and Pakistan’s gov’t who have felt over the past 10 years that Obama was worth more alive than dead– as long as he could be kept bottled up and controlled, perhaps as a pawn in a larger game.
Bob in AZ
How many people lived in the compound? I can’t believe they’d all need to have been killed. Weren’t there any prisoners?
Good question about other prisoners – who could possibly be tried and made to speak about what was going on. Don’t hold your breath waiting for any prisoners to have “made it.”
This story is a so full of bah-loney that it’s not even funny.
I heard on the radio today – KNX 1070 – that there was a kill order. There was supposedly no attempt even made to capture OBL alive, which also would explain why SEALs instead of Delta. I just don’t get the desire to destroy all the evidence of the alleged assassination of the most wanted terrorist in the world. Here is the AP reporting about how this alleged burial at sea isn’t copascetic with Islam:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/may/02/ml-bin-laden-sea-burial/
I also find it hard to believe that there was no plan for this. We’ve been working on capturing OBL for a decade and nobody until last week thought of what to do with the body? That just doesn’t make sense.
I suppose there would be good reason to claim he was dead even if we did have him. It is at least a little incongruous that we’d kill him when we imprison and torture kids, cab drivers, journalists, and whoever else is unfortunate enough to get caught up in our “war against terrorism.”
Why no congratulations from the so called “MODERATE” Muslims??
Perhaps because there aren’t any??
Would you even listen to them if they were getting news coverage?
Note, Jake Tapper says Pakistan scrambled fighter jets.
Though that could have been show.
Another issue.
If the helicopters were disguised in some way (paint, electronics, etc.) it would have been very necessary to destroy them after the event, either by fire or ditching.
Also, some posters talk about DNA. DNA samples require an original and unquestioned chain of custody against which to compare. Where would be the original?
Also, why would there be any question that OBL was a CIA asset, at one time? Did not he work with the CIA when the USSR was in Afghanistan?
There were reports last night that one helicopter ‘had to be destroyed’. Also one diary on Large Orange last night had a report that the compound was destroyed with explosives after everything was over. Put those together with the reported ditching of the body at sea, and you get a fact pattern that while very very far from conclusive becomes rather difficult to distinguish from destruction of evidence and tampering with a crime scene. I hope more evidence surfaces to help us understand what actually happened.
The compound wasn’t destroyed. There are many pictures of it from today with Pakistani troops standing atop it, Pakistani military vehicles next to the walls, large parts of the helicopter un-destroyed and being carted away.
Good, that would be more evidence like I asked for. A reasonable interpretation consistent with all the reports is in this diary: http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/05/02/administration-ponders-whether-to-release-photo-evidence-of-bin-ladens-corpse/
Somebody I can bet will collect the cash. But, we’ll never ever know who.
I’d note that al Jazeera’s story mentions that the Pakistani Taliban have threatened attacks on Zardari. I think that’s a good explanation for his “curious silence.”
Also, I’m sure many of you have thought of this but I haven’t seen it articulated much – It really doesn’t take that much to bring down a helicopter, so all the points about how bin Laden was right next to a military base suggest something about ISI since he’s been there for 6 years; but also something about the military, since the raid seems to have drawn no effective fire, even as it went on for 40 minutes. Can you imagine West Pointers standing down for that long while foreign helicopters flew over a firefight on American soil? And this is an extraordinary raid even if you assume (as I do) that no one was told it was to get UBl. Pakistanis have been bitterly angry about drone strikes and small border incursions into rural villages. This was an on-going firefight in a crowded city! That the Pakistani military held back says something for their command and control and certainly suggests that someone was willing to put it on the line for the Americans. For these reasons, it makes a lot of sense that the Pakistani Taliban are angry at various Pakistani leaders. We don’t know who, but we know someone was collaborating with UBL. Likewise, they don’t know who, but they know somebody was collaborating with the US.
Excellent point. Obama had to make sure that the military base would stay quiet. That’s why I think that a branch of ISI had to be involved– it was probably someone high up in that branch of ISI who told the military base not to react to the sound of helicopters nearby, etc.
I think the higher levels of ISI and the military base are due for a shake-up in the aftermath of this.
Bob in AZ
Former CIA chief John McGlaughlin (sp?) was on the Diane Rehm show this morning, expressing his contempt for our Constitution by praising the assassination of OBL, and contrasting that result with “imagine the spectacle” if he had been captured and brought to Guantanamo [where else?], and the debates that would have ensued about whether to try him in civilian court or Military Commission, etc. etc.
Yep, there he was, supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States, just like he swore in his oath of office. /s
The American system of justice reached its greatest moral height during the Nuremburg Trials. But now, they are no longer the model that we aspire to, as a nation. Instead, the “Gunfight at OK Corral” is our model, with Obama as our Gunslinger in Chief.
America, I hardly knew ya.
Bob in AZ
I am not sure Pakistan was up for a story line where Pakistani military engagement followed a US Military attack on OBL’s compound. Not really a winning script.