"WE REALLY DIDN'T KNOW...WHAT WAS GOING ON"
About two-thirds of the article is a sort of scene-setter, a prologue to on-the-ground story we've all been waiting for. But when the big moment arrives, The New Yorker's Schmidle instead punts:
"Meanwhile, James, the squadron commander, had breached one wall, crossed a section of the yard covered with trellises, breached a second wall, and joined up with the SEALs from helo one, who were entering the ground floor of the house. What happened next is not precisely clear. 'I can tell you that there was a time period of almost twenty to twenty-five minutes where we really didn't know just exactly what was going on,' Panetta said later, on 'PBS NewsHour.'
"Until this moment, the operation had been monitored by dozens of defense, intelligence, and Administration officials watching the drone's video feed. The SEALs were not wearing helmet cams, contrary to a widely cited report by CBS. None of them had any previous knowledge of the house's floor plan, and they were further jostled by the awareness that they were possibly minutes away from ending the costliest manhunt in American history; as a result, some of their recollections -- on which this account is based--may be imprecise and, thus, subject to dispute."
Schmidle claims that the SEALs' "recollections -- on which this account is based" -- are subject to dispute. But as I've noted, the article is NOT based on their recollections, but on what some source claims to Schmidle were their recollections. Why the summary may be imprecise and thus subject to dispute after it has been filtered by a person controlling the scenario, must be asked. Perhaps this is why The New Yorker is not permitted to speak directly to the SEALs -- because of what they could tell the magazine.
Now, killing the men who lived in the compound: First, the SEALs shot and killed the courier, who they say was armed, and his wife, who they say was not, when they emerged from the guesthouse. Then they killed the courier's brother inside the main house, who they say was armed. Then they moved up the stairs:
"...three SEALs marched up the stairs. Midway up, they saw bin Laden's twenty-three-year-old son, Khalid, craning his neck around the corner. He then appeared at the top of the staircase with an AK-47. Khalid, who wore a white T-shirt with an overstretched neckline and had short hair and a clipped beard, fired down at the Americans. (The counterterrorism official claims that Khalid was unarmed, though still a threat worth taking seriously. 'You have an adult male, late at night, in the dark, coming down the stairs at you in an Al Qaeda house -- your assumption is that you're encountering a hostile.') At least two of the SEALs shot back and killed Khalid."
Ok, that's pretty strange. First, Schmidle asserts that Khalid bin Laden was armed and fired with an AK-47. Then he quotes the "counterterrorism official" saying that Khalid was unarmed. Why does The New Yorker first run the "Khalid was armed" claim as a fact, and then include Brennan's disclaimer? What's really going on here, even from the New Yorker's editorial standpoint?
Here's another such instance: a dispute over where Osama was when they first saw him:
"Three SEALs shuttled past Khalid's body and blew open another metal cage, which obstructed the staircase leading to the third floor. Bounding up the unlit stairs, they scanned the railed landing. On the top stair, the lead SEAL swiveled right; with his night-vision goggles, he discerned that a tall, rangy man with a fist-length beard was peeking out from behind a bedroom door, ten feet away. The SEAL instantly sensed that it was Crankshaft [codename for Osama]. (The counterterrorism official asserts that the SEAL first saw bin Laden on the landing, and fired but missed.)"
What's the purpose of all this? How good is intelligence work when they can't reconstruct whether the singular focus of the operation was first spotted peeking out from a doorway, or standing on the landing above them?
And then one of the most interesting passages, about the kill:
"A second SEAL stepped into the room and trained the infrared laser of his M4 on bin Laden's chest. The Al Qaeda chief, who was wearing a tan shalwar kameez and a prayer cap on his head, froze; he was unarmed. 'There was never any question of detaining or capturing him -- it wasn't a split-second decision. No one wanted detainees,' the special-operations officer told me. (The Administration maintains that had bin Laden immediately surrendered he could have been taken alive.)"
Uh-oh. So who is this Special Operations officer? He is directly disputing the administration's claim on what surely matters greatly -- what were President Obama's intentions here? And did they always plan to just ignore them? That The New Yorker just drops this in with no further analysis or context is, simply put, shocking.
It seems almost as if Panetta, Obama, and the people in the story who most closely approximate actual representatives of the public in a functioning democracy, were basically cut off from observing what went down that day -- or from influencing what transpired.
Consider this statement from Panetta, not included in the New Yorker piece:
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
3
3
1
