SEAL who shot OBL fears 'target' on back
Editor's note: Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, the author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden -- From 9/11 to Abbottabad," and a director at the New America Foundation.
(CNN) -- On Monday Esquire magazine published a massive profile of the Navy SEAL who says he shot Osama bin Laden.
Weighing in at some
15,000 words, the story does not identify the killer of al Qaeda's
leader by his real name and refers to him only as "the Shooter."
Clearly the Shooter
wanted to maintain something of the code of silence that is pervasive
among the covert warriors of SEAL Team 6, the unit that mounted the bin
Laden operation.
Peter Bergen
What do we learn from the
Shooter's story? Most critically that the Shooter says he killed bin
Laden with two shots at close range as he stood in his third floor
bedroom in the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he had been
hiding for more than five years.
This account differs in a crucial respect from the book "No Easy Day"
by Mark Owen, a SEAL who also was on the bin Laden raid. (Mark Owen is a
pseudonym; he was quickly revealed to be Matt Bissonnette.)
In "No Easy Day," a
runaway bestseller that has stayed on the New York Times bestseller list
for the past 22 weeks, Bissonnette writes that the SEALs were 15
minutes into the Abbottabad mission when the point man spotted a male
poking his head out of a third floor bedroom.
He wrote that the point
man shot at the mysterious male, and when the SEALs went inside the
third floor bedroom they found him lying on the floor in his death
throes. Bissonnette and another SEAL quickly finished him off with
several more rounds.
The dead man was bin Laden.
'Nightmare' at home for SEAL who shot Osama bin Laden
It's a much less heroic
story than that of the Shooter, who says he encountered bin Laden
face-to-face in the bedroom. The Shooter says he saw that bin Laden's
gun was within easy reach, and it was only then that he fired the shots
that killed him.
Who killed Osama bin Laden?
The Shooter's version of
bin Laden's death matches closely the accounts by reporters who have
written most authoritatively about it.
It also matches what I
saw when I was the only outside observer allowed inside the Abbottabad
compound before it was demolished in late February 2012.
Accompanied by Pakistani
military officers, I examined the bedroom where bin Laden died. The
officers showed me a large patch of dark, congealed blood on the low
ceiling.
It is consistent with
the Shooter's account of firing two rounds at the head of a
"surprisingly tall terrorist" while he was standing up. This evidence
tends to undercut Bissonnette's version of bin Laden's death.
That said, it is worth noting that the night of bin Laden's death was a very confusing one.
Become a fan of CNNOpinion
Stay up to date on the latest opinion, analysis and conversations through social media. Join us at Facebook/CNNOpinion and follow us @CNNOpinion on Twitter. We welcome your ideas and comments.
As soon as the operation
in Abbottabad had started one of the two Black Hawk helicopters
crashed. There was a brief but intense firefight with Abu Ahmed
al-Kuwaiti, bin Laden's courier. The SEALs also shot and killed the
courier's brother, sister-in-law and bin Laden's son Khalid.
All this took place in
less than 15 minutes on a night when there was no moon and the
electricity in the compound and surrounding neighborhood had been turned
off. The SEALs were wearing night vision goggles that bathed the
compound in a murky, pixilated glow.
It was a confusing situation, and that helps explain why Bissonnette's account differs from that of the Shooter.
In fact, Bissonnette's
account virtually eliminates what the Esquire profile asserts is the
Shooter's "central role in bin Laden's death."
Navy Seals: A battle for the conscience
"I don't know why he'd do that," the Shooter told Esquire.
We keep learning more
about the hunt for and the death of Osama bin Laden, but it is a complex
story, and, in common with many important historical events, the full
facts will take many years to emerge.
The Shooter's account in Esquire is important to help us understand what happened that night, as is Bissonnette's account.
A good deal of the Esquire piece concerns the Shooter's worries about his future now that he has left the military.
"When he leaves after
sixteen years in the Navy, his body filled with scar tissue, arthritis,
tendonitis, eye damage, and blown disks, here is what he gets from his
employer and a grateful nation: Nothing. No pension, no health care, and
no protection for himself or his family."
In fact, pretty much any veteran who leaves before 20 years of service is not going to be eligible for a pension.
So should the Shooter be
treated any differently? Indeed, should other members of key Special
Operations units like SEAL Team 6 or the Army's Delta Force who have
been at war almost continuously since the 9/11 attacks be given greater
benefits given the inordinate amount of combat they have seen?
It's an idea that may be
worth exploring for those who have seen extensive combat, but the fact
is that once you start making such exceptions, the floodgates will open.
After more than a decade of war, many veterans in conventional military
units would also qualify for such preferential treatment.
In a time of budget
crisis and large cuts at the Pentagon it is hard to make such a case.
After all, what about the thousands of Marines who have also been
fighting for many years in tough places like Anbar in western Iraq and
Helmand in southern Afghanistan? Should they get a cushy early
retirement deal, too?
If the Shooter had
wanted to get the full benefits that follow 20 years of service he had a
choice: Stay in for another four years to qualify for the pension he
clearly deserves.
It's a choice he didn't make.
0 comments:
Post a Comment