Challenging a Presidential Narrative

Seymour M. Hersh released a 10356 word article on the fiction surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden, using 5 sources (4 of which remain anonymous). Mr. Hersh is no stranger to this type of reporting, his piece on the My Lai Massacre published in 1969 resulted in his winning of the 1970 Pulitzer prize for International Reporting. He also helped to break the story of torture at Abu Ghraib, but has also been criticized in the past for his use of anonymous sources.

What Hersh has done with this piece is to directly challenge the narrative laid out by the Obama administration in the aftermath of the Osama bin Laden raid. The White House very quickly got out in front of this, calling the assertions that Hersh lays out ‘baseless’. Former CIA deputy director Mike Morell came out and slammed the article saying that “every sentence he read was wrong.” Former Navy Seal Robert O’Neill, otherwise known as the man who shot bin Laden, slammed Hersh’s report as ‘ludicrous’.

What we do know to be fact in the narrative of the Osama bin Laden raid is that he was located in a compound in Abbottabad, which was about 15 minutes from Pakistan’s version of West Point. That he was guarded in this compound and that he had his family with him. That is just 3 cold hard facts that have been corroborated from sources outside the United States.

What we know about Hersh’s sources are that one is a retired senior US intelligence official, there are two longtime consultants to the US Special Operations Command, at least one anonymous Pakistani official and Asad Durrani, a former director-general of Pakistan’s ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence). Hersh gathered information from his anonymous sources, whose identities have presumably been protected for their own security, and corroborated it with Durrani’s intimate knowledge within the ISI. This is not the first time Durrani has been tied to speaking out about the Pakistani’s harboring bin Laden within their country.

Hersh’s piece, using his sources, alleges that a Pakistani came forward to US officials with information on where bin Laden was located. That the US put pressure on Pakistani officials by pulling back funding until they were willing to work together and give up bin Laden. It also alleges that we had people in country to help coordinate the raid so that other officials in the Pakistani military were unaware of what was happening.

Prior to the raid Hersh’s retired senior intelligence official tells us that there was an agreement to not speak right away about the raid, that they would release a statement a week later confirming Osama bin Laden had been killed in a drone attack. After the raid, and because of the one blackhawk going down in the compound, that narrative was in question and was completely scrapped once the Obama administration got the press pool together and made a statement about the raid. Hersh’s sources confirm that this did not sit well with the Pakistani’s and is why they have been less cooperative with us over the past few years, until recently when they needed help due to the impending threat of ISIS in the region.

According to Hersh’s sources the Pentagon and CIA went with the narrative the White House laid out following President Obama’s speech. We can corroborate that there had to be multiple corrections issued by the White House, the CIA (above), and the Pentagon (through White House officials) on the details that had come out. This all lends more credence to Hersh’s sources and his timeline of events.

In the end we won’t know where the truth really lies, at least not until Hersh’s sources come forward (if they ever do). If they do decide to come forward we could expect to see a ‘The Guardian’/Citizenfour style roll out of more details and information as the sources get to safer locations. Given Hersh’s track record, though, this seems like a long shot and it’s much more likely that the truth remains obscured.

Editor’s Note: Since our initial report on 5/12/15 the New York Times and NBC News have come forward to support some of Seymour Hersh’s claims through their own investigations.