[BITList] NAVY SEALS Reveal truth about Bin Laden Raid

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    Osama Bin Laden was killed within 90 seconds of the US Navy Seals
    landing in his compound and not after a protracted gun battle,
    according to the first account by the men who carried out the raid.
    The operation was so clinical that only 12 bullets were fired.
    The Seals have spoken out because they were angered at the version
    given by politicians, which they see as portraying them as
    cold-blooded murderers on a kill mission.  They were also shocked
    that President Barack Obama announced Bin Laden's death on
    television the same evening, rendering useless much of the
    intelligence they had seized.
    Chuck Pfarrer, a former commander of Seal Team 6, which conducted
    the operation, has interviewed many of those who took part for a
    book, Seal Target Geronimo, to be published in the US this week. The
    Seals own accounts differ from the White House version, which gave
    the impression that Bin Laden was killed at the end of the operation
    rather than in its opening seconds.  Pfarrer insists Bin Laden would
    have been captured had he surrendered.
    There isn't a politician in the world who could resist trying to
    take credit for getting Bin Laden but it devalued the intelligence
    and gave time for every other Al-Qaeda leader to scurry to another
    bolthole, said Pfarrer.  The men who did this and their valorous act
    deserve better.
    It's a pretty shabby way to treat these guys.  The first hint of the
    mission came in January last year when the team's commanding officer
    was called to a meeting at the headquarters of joint special
    operations command.  The meeting was held in a soundproof bunker
    three stories below ground with his boss, Admiral William McRaven,
    and a CIA officer.
    They told him a walled compound in Pakistan had been under
    surveillance for a couple of weeks.  They were certain a high-value
    individual was inside and needed a plan to present to the president.
    It had to be someone important.  So is this Bert or Ernie? he asked.
    The Seals nicknames for Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri
    are a reference to two Muppets in Sesame Street, one tall and thin
    and the other short and fat.  We have a voice print, said the CIA
    officer, and were 60% or 70% certain it's our guy.  McRaven added
    that a reconnaissance satellite had measured the targets shadow. 
    Over 6ft tall.
    When McRaven added they would use Ghost Hawk helicopters, the team
    leader had no doubt.  These are the most classified, sophisticated
    stealth helicopters ever developed, said Pfarrer.  They are kept in
    locked hangars and fly so quiet we call it whisper mode. Over the
    next couple of months a plan was hatched.  A mock-up of the compound
    was built at Tall Pines, an army facility in a national forest
    somewhere in the eastern US.
    Four reconnaissance satellites were placed in orbit over the
    compound, sending back video and communications intercepts.  A tall
    figure seen walking up and down was named the Pacer. Obama gave the
    go-ahead and Seal Team 6, known as the Jedi, was deployed to
    Afghanistan.  The White House cancelled plans to provide air cover
    using jet fighters, fearing this might endanger relations with
    Pakistan.
    Sending in the Ghost Hawks without air cover was considered too
    risky so the Seals had to use older Stealth Hawks.  A Prowler
    electronic warfare aircraft from the carrier USS Carl Vinson was
    used to jam Pakistan's radar and create decoy targets.
    Operation Neptune's Spear was initially planned for April 30 but bad
    weather delayed it until May 1, a moonless night.  The commandos
    flew on two Stealth Hawks, codenamed Razor 1 and 2, followed by two
    Chinooks five minutes behind, known as Command Bird and the gun
    platform.  On board, each Seal was clad in body amour and night
    vision goggles and equipped with laser targets, radios and sawn-off
    M4 rifles. They were expecting up to 30 people in the main house,
    including Bin Laden and three of his wives, two sons, Khalid and
    Hamza, his courier, Abu Ahmed al- Kuwaiti, four bodyguards and a
    number of children.  At 56 minutes past midnight the compound came
    into sight and the code Palm Beach signaled three minutes to
    landing. Razor 1 hovered above the main house, a three-story
    building where Bin Laden lived on the top floor.  Twelve Seals roped
    the 5ft-6ft down onto the roof and then jumped to a third-floor
    patio, where they kicked in the windows and entered.
    The first person the Seals encountered was a terrified woman, Bin
    Laden's third wife, Khaira, who ran into the hall.  Blinded by a
    searing white strobe light they shone at her, she stumbled back.  A
    Seal grabbed her by the arm and threw her to the floor.
    Bin Laden's bedroom was along a short hall.  The door opened; he
    popped out and then slammed the door shut.  Geronimo, Geronimo,
    Geronimo, radioed one Seal, meaning eyes on target.
    At the same time lights came on from the floor below and Bin Laden's
    son Khalid came running up the stairs towards the Seals.  He was
    shot dead.
    Two Seals kicked in Bin Laden's door.  The room, they later
    recalled, smelt like old clothing, like a guest bedroom in a
    grandmother's house.  Inside was the Al-Qaeda leader and his
    youngest wife, Amal, who was screaming as he pushed her in front of
    him. No, no, don't do this! she shouted as her husband reached
    across the king-size bed for his AK-47 assault rifle. The Seals
    reacted instantly, firing in the same second. One round thudded into
    the mattress.  The other, aimed at Bin Laden's head, grazed Amal in
    the calf.  As his hand reached for the gun, they each fired again: 
    one shot hit his breastbone, the other his skull, killing him
    instantly and blowing out the back of his head.
    Meanwhile Razor 2 was heading for the guesthouse, a low,
    shoebox-like building, where Bin Laden's courier, Kuwaiti, and his
    brother lived.  As the helicopter neared, a door opened and two
    figures appeared, one waving an AK-47.  This was Kuwaiti. In the
    moonless night he could see nothing and lifted his rifle, spraying
    bullets wildly.
    He did not see the Stealth Hawk.  On board someone shouted, Bust
    him!, and a sniper fired two shots. Kuwaiti was killed, as was the
    person behind him, who turned out to be his wife.  Also on board
    were a CIA agent, a Pakistani-American who would act as interpreter,
    and a sniffer dog called Karo, wearing dog body armor and goggles.
    Within two minutes the Seals from Razor 2 had cleared the guesthouse
    and removed the women and children.
    They then ran to the main house and entered from the ground floor,
    checking the rooms.  One of Bin Laden's bodyguards was waiting with
    his AK-47. The Seals shot him twice and he toppled over. Five
    minutes into the operation the command Chinook landed outside the
    compound, disgorging the commanding officer and more men. They
    blasted through the compound wall and rushed in.
    The commander made his way to the third floor, where Bin Laden's
    body lay on the floor face up. Photographs were taken, and the
    commander called on his satellite phone to headquarters with the
    words: Geronimo Echo KIA Bin Laden enemy killed in action.
    This was the first time the White House knew he was dead and it was
    probably 20 minutes into the raid, said Pfarrer.  A sample of Bin
    Laden's DNA was taken and the body was bagged.  They kept his rifle.
    It is now mounted on the wall of their team room at their
    headquarters in Virginia Beach, Virginia, alongside photographs of a
    dozen colleagues killed in action in the past 20 years.
    At this point things started to go wrong.  Razor 1 took off but the
    top secret green unit that controls the electronics failed.  The
    aircraft went into a spin and crashed tail-first into the
    compound... The Seals were alarmed, thinking it had been shot down,
    and several rushed to the wreckage.  The crew climbed out, shaken
    but unharmed. The commanding officer ordered them to destroy Razor
    2, to remove the green unit, and to smash the avionics. They then
    laid explosive charges.
    They loaded Bin Laden's body onto the Chinook along with the cache
    of intelligence in plastic bin bags and headed toward the USS Carl
    Vinson.  As they flew off they blew up Razor 2.  The whole operation
    had taken 38 minutes.
    The following morning White House officials announced that the
    helicopter had crashed as it arrived, forcing the Seals to abandon
    plans to enter from the roof.  A photograph of the situation room
    showed a shocked Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, with her
    hand to her mouth.
    Why did they get it so wrong?  What they were watching was live
    video but it was shot from 20,000 feet by a drone circling overhead
    and relayed in real time to the White House and Leon Panetta, the
    CIA director, in Langley.
    The Seals were not wearing helmet cameras, and those watching in
    Washington had no idea what was happening inside the buildings. They
    don't understand our terminology, so when someone said the insertion
    helicopter has crashed, they assumed it meant on entry, said Pfarrer.
    What infuriated the Seals, according to Pfarrer, was the description
    of the raid as a kill mission. I've been a Seal for 30 years and I
    never heard the words kill mission, he said.
    It's a Beltway [Washington insiders] fantasy world.  If it was a
    kill mission you don't need Seal Team 6; you need a box of grenades.
    Hooyah!
    As Paul Harvey would say: You now know the rest of the story!



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