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CIA VictoryBy MASSIMO CALABRESI (Time.com)
As the news of Osama Bin Laden's death moves from exhilarating novelty to accepted reality, one group in the U.S. government will emerge as key to the win: the Central Intelligence Agency. From the earliest identification of a Bin Laden courier, the pursuit of leads, the assessment of evidence and the execution of the raid in Abottabad, Pakistan, the CIA can rightly claim the most credit for finding and killing the world's most wanted terrorist.
American people reacted with this news about Bin Laden's Death.
(Associated Press)
Taking credit for a win is not something the agency gets to do often. Though on high alert in the run-up to 9/11, the CIA was criticized afterward for failing to connect the dots of existing intelligence on the threat. Years of failed efforts to find and kill bin Laden thereafter embarrassed and frustrated the agency. And reforms intended to fix the CIA's problems remained inconclusive in the public eye, without a win on the issue most important to Americans: bringing bin Laden to justice. (Watch TIME's video of the celebration at Ground Zero after bin Laden's death.)
But the picture already emerging from senior administration sources will begin to turn that opinion around. In a briefing for reporters last night, officials laid out in detail the intelligence work that went into finding bin Laden. The case started with human intelligence:
From the time that we first recognized bin Laden as a threat, the CIA gathered leads on individuals in bin Laden's inner circle, including his personal couriers. Detainees in the post-9/11 period flagged for us individuals who may have been providing direct support to bin Laden and his deputy, Zawahiri, after their escape from Afghanistan.
One courier in particular had our constant attention. Detainees gave us his nom de guerre or his nickname and identified him as both a protÉgÉ of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of September 11th, and a trusted assistant of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the former number three of al Qaeda who was captured in 2005.
Detainees also identified this man as one of the few al Qaeda couriers trusted by bin Laden. They indicated he might be living with and protecting bin Laden. But for years, we were unable to identify his true name or his location.
The fact that the initial tip about the courier emerged from detainee interrogations needs to be unpacked. Were any "enhanced interrogation techniques" used to obtain information about the courier? Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and al Libbi were two of the detainees who were subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques." KSM was waterboarded, a technique Obama and current CIA chief Leon Panetta have repeatedly decried as torture. There can be little question that both Al Libbi and KSM were questioned about the courier, whom the CIA was pursuing aggressively, according to the senior administration official: (See photos of bin Laden's Pakistan hideout.)
Four years ago, we uncovered his identity, and for operational reasons, I can't go into details about his name or how we identified him, but about two years ago, after months of persistent effort, we identified areas in Pakistan where the courier and his brother operated. Still we were unable to pinpoint exactly where they lived, due to extensive operational security on their part. The fact that they were being so careful reinforced our belief that we were on the right track.
Then in August 2010, we found their residence, a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a town about 35 miles north of Islamabad. The area is relatively affluent, with lots of retired military. It's also insolated [sic] from the natural disasters and terrorist attacks that have afflicted other parts of Pakistan.
The work then moved to technical intelligence collection, including efforts by the CIA's sister agencies, the satellite-running National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the eavesdropping National Security Agency:
When we saw the compound where the brothers lived, we were shocked by what we saw - an extraordinarily unique compound. The compound sits on a large plot of land in an area that was relatively secluded when it was built. It is roughly eight times larger than the other homes in the area.
When the compound was built in 2005, it was on the outskirts of the town center, at the end of a narrow dirt road. In the last six years, some residential homes have been built nearby. The physical security measures of the compound are extraordinary. It has 12- to 18-foot walls topped with barbed wire. Internal wall sections - internal walls sectioned off different portions of the compound to provide extra privacy. Access to the compound is restricted by two security gates, and the residents of the compound burn their trash, unlike their neighbors, who put the trash out for collection.
The main structure, a three-story building, has few windows facing the outside of the compound. A terrace on the third floor has a seven-foot wall privacy - has a seven-foot privacy wall.
It's also noteworthy that the property is valued at approximately $1 million but has no telephone or Internet service connected to it. The brothers had no explainable source of wealth.
All of this information then went to the CIA's directorate of intelligence to cook into a theory of the case - whether it could be assumed that it was in fact Bin Laden who was likely in the compound, and how confident the President could be that he was sending a strike force in for a worthwhile risk. (See TIME's 2001 cover story on the 9/11 attacks.)
Intelligence analysts concluded that this compound was custom built to hide someone of significance. We soon learned that more people were living at the compound than the two brothers and their families. A third family lived there - one whose size and whose makeup matched the bin Laden family members that we believed most likely to be with Osama bin Laden. Our best assessment, based on a large body of reporting from multiple sources, was that bin Laden was living there with several family members, including his youngest wife.
Everything we saw - the extremely elaborate operational security, the brothers' background and their behavior, and the location and the design of the compound itself was perfectly consistent with what our experts expected bin Laden's hideout to look like. Keep in mind that two of bin Laden's gatekeepers, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Faraj al-Libbi, were arrested in the settled areas of Pakistan.
Our analysts looked at this from every angle, considering carefully who other than bin Laden could be at the compound. We conducted red team exercises and other forms of alternative analysis to check our work. No other candidate fit the bill as well as bin Laden did.
So the final conclusion, from an intelligence standpoint, was twofold. We had high confidence that a high-value target was being harbored by the brothers on the compound, and we assessed that there was a strong probability that that person was Osama bin Laden.
More details will emerge in coming days, and there will no doubt be questions about the operation. But for now, the CIA is doing publicly what it hasn't been able to do in quite some time: take a victory lap.
How they 'SEAL'ed Monster's fateFrom the NewYork Post By GEOFF EARLE in Washington and CHUCK BENNETT in New York
It took 10 years to find him -- and just 40 minutes to take him out.
Two Black Hawk helicopters -- carrying 20 to 25 elite Navy SEAL commandos armed to the teeth with weapons and night-vision goggles -- departed on their ultra-secret mission from the Ghazi air base in northwest Pakistan under cover of darkness at around 12:30 a.m. Monday local time in Pakistan (3:30 p.m. Sunday in New York).
It was the moment that America had been dreaming about since 9/11 -- finally nailing terror chief Osama bin Laden.
But the unit, SEAL Team Six, wasn't in some wild, lawless region of Pakistan. Instead, it was about to land in leafy, suburban Abbottabad, Pakistan, just a short drive from the capital of Islamabad and less than a mile from a Pakistani military academy.
As the team reached its destination -- a heavily fortified, nearly windowless, triangular compound in the area -- the SEALs prepared to be dropped to the ground.
For weeks, at the Bagram air base in neighboring Afghanistan, the US military counterterrorism team had been training for the assault in an exact replica of the compound. Their mission was so top secret that they weren't even told at first who they were training to capture.
They had planned to hover over the compound in the aircraft and then rapidly rappel down ropes, landing inside the structure's 12- to 18-foot walls to surprise their prey -- the al Qaeda founder code-named "Geronimo" -- and his cohorts inside.
But in reality, the operation turned hot immediately.
Guards loyal to the terror kingpin spotted the choppers and opened fire with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
Then, suddenly, one the MH-60 choppers -- infamous for crashes, including one in 1993 in Mogadishu -- apparently stalled in midair, either from mechanical failure or enemy gunfire.
Disaster loomed even before the first American boot could touch soil.
"It was probably one of the most anxiety-filled periods of time, I think, in the lives of the people who were assembled here," said John Brennan, the White House chief terrorism adviser, who, like President Obama, monitored the assault in real time from the Situation Room in DC. Aided by a SEAL's helmet cam, they watched in amazement as the hero US pilot at the helm of the disabled chopper refused to accept defeat.
He managed to make a rough but controlled landing, and his team and that from the other chopper leaped into action, guns blazing.
"Bullets were flying. It was very frightening," Gul Zaman, a trader who lives about 200 yards from the bin Laden lair, told The Times of London.
The SEALs were fighting to make their way to their goal -- the main, three-story building in the center of the $1 million compound surrounded by barbed wire.
Intelligence indicated that bin Laden was living on the second and third floors, which conveniently had 7-foot walls surrounding their balconies, perfect for a 6-foot-6 man like bin Laden to discreetly stand outside in the fresh air without being seen.
But while he might have been hidden to the outside world, he wasn't out of sight of US satellite cameras. In recent months, he had been apparently photographed leaving the main house every day to spend an hour walking around the courtyard, CBS reported.
One photo eventually caught him inside the house, presumably by a window, and was rushed straight to Obama, who then started stepping up hush-hush meetings for the attack. This was around mid-March, according to The Daily Mail of London.
US authorities also said they had other proof that bin Laden was in the compound.
They said they had a voice recording of him there that had been picked up by a CIA microphone. They analyzed it with past confirmed recordings -- and they were a match, the Mail said.
At the time of the assault, there were roughly 20 men, women and children -- some bin Laden's relatives -- in the compound with him. The SEALs spent 30 minutes fighting their way past most of them as the forces cleared a path through the first and second floors before finally arriving to the top floor.
There -- either in a room or hallway -- they found bin Laden, whose lanky frame and thin, bearded face was clearly recognizable, Pentagon officials said.
One of bin Laden's wives even identified him by calling out his name, Time said last night on its Web site.
A SEAL who spotted him yelled, "Geronimo!"
Obama and his aides were now aware bin Laden was finally moments away from annihilation.
But like the coward he was, in his final moments, bin Laden hid behind a woman.
"There was a female who was, in fact, in the line of fire that was reportedly used as a shield to shield bin Laden from the incoming fire," Brennan said.
"Here is bin Laden, who has been calling for these [terror] attacks [against US civilians], living in this million-dollar-plus compound hiding behind women who were put in front of him as a shield."
Bin Laden -- who already killed more than 3,000 Americans in the 9/11 attacks -- sought to take out another one or two US soldiers.
"He was engaged in a firefight. Whether or not he got off any rounds, I don't know," Brennan said. Still, the SEALs did what they were trained to do. Bin Laden, his son Khalid, 24, and the female human shield were all killed.
The Saudi-born terror mastermind was felled by a "double tap," meaning he was killed instantly by one bullet -- and then had a second one pumped into him for good measure just to make sure he was dead, National Journal reported.
The kill shot ripped just above his left eye, blowing away part of his skull. The other bullet reportedly went through his chest.
"If we had the opportunity to take him alive, we would have done that," Brennan said.
But another US security official later said, "This was a kill operation," noting that the United States knew bin Laden would never settle for being taken alive.
In Washington, Obama got his first indication that bin Laden had been killed when a Navy SEAL sent the simple coded message saying, "Geronimo E-KIA."
Bin Laden had been code-named for the Apache chief who had long eluded authorities and launched attacks on white settlers in the late 1880s. The "E-KIA" stood for "enemy killed in action," ABC reported.
His lifeless body was positively identified on the scene by one of his wives -- he had at least four.
But just to be sure, members of the US force measured his height and used an advanced facial recognition technology device.
DNA tests later confirmed with 99.9 percent accuracy that it the dead man, indeed, was bin Laden. One of the DNA samples came from a bin Laden sister who passed away from cancer in Boston several years ago. At the time of her death, the CIA removed part of her brain, ABC News reported.
Photos of his corpse also were transmitted to Washington as proof of his death. After getting positive confirmation, the president exclaimed, "We got him!"
Before the US team left, it removed an intelligence treasure trove of documents and computer drives that could provide invaluable information on al Qaeda's membership, missions and strategy. Then the SEALs -- taking bin Laden's corpse -- crowded into the remaining functioning helicopter and one of the two backups on hand for the short flight to an American base in Afghanistan.
Before liftoff, the SEALs destroyed the downed helicopter with explosives.
The compound survivors were later gathered up and handed over to Pakistani authorities.
In all, four people besides bin Laden were killed: two brothers, one of whom was bin Laden's personal courier; bin Laden's son, Khalid, and the female human shield. Two other women were wounded. There were no American casualties. The whole mission may have lasted 40 minutes. But the planning had gotten under way much earlier.
The big break in finding bin Laden occurred about four years ago, when intelligence officials uncovered the identity of bin Laden's personal courier from a Guantanamo detainee and eventually traced bin Laden to his home.
After months of surveillance, Obama gave the final authority to nail bin Laden at 8:20 a.m. Friday during a meeting with Brennan, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, White House Chief of Staff William Daley and deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough, officials said.
He had considered bombing the hideout -- but quickly ditched the idea because he wanted a body, proof of death, sources said.
The mission was supposed to go down early Saturday morning (EDT) but had to be scrubbed because of poor weather.
The next day, Sunday, around 1 p.m., the National Security team started to gather in the Situation room, and Obama arrived about an hour later. By 3:50 p.m. in Washington, Obama was given the first tentative confirmation of bin Laden's death.
Then, at 7 p.m., he was told it was a "high probability," and by the time the coded message came in of "Geromino's" death, he knew the mission was accomplished.
That Moment of TriumphBy MICHAEL SCHERER
The people who gathered Sunday in the Situation Room know all about high-pressure situations. But this was something else. For 40 minutes, the President and his senior aides could do nothing but watch the video screens and listen to the operation and ensuing firefight on the other side of the world. At Barack Obama's orders, special operations teams were invading the airspace of a foreign country, targeting a compound with unknown occupants, and hoping to get out unscathed. The target was America's No. 1 enemy, Osama bin Laden. But no one knew for sure if he was even there.
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House. AP Photo/The White House, Pete Souza
The President sat stone-faced through much of the events. Several of his aides, however, were pacing. For long periods of time, nobody said a thing, as everyone waited for the next update. In the modern age, Presidents can experience their own military actions like a video game, except that they have no control over the events. They cannot, and would not, intervene to contact the commanders running the operation. So when word came that a helicopter had been grounded, a sign that the plan was already off course, the tension increased. (See pictures of Osama bin Laden's Pakistan hideout.)
Minutes later, more word came over the transom. "We've IDed Geronimo," said a disembodied voice, using the agreed-upon code name for America's most wanted enemy, Osama bin Laden. Word then came that Geronimo had been killed. Only when the last helicopter lifted off some minutes later did the President know that his forces had sustained no casualties. (See pictures of people celebrating Osama bin Laden's death.)
The decision to attack had been made days earlier by the President. He gathered his senior intelligence, military and diplomatic team together in the Situation Room on Thursday afternoon to hear his options. There were already concerns about operational security. At that point, hundreds of people had already been read into the potential whereabouts of bin Laden. Any leak would have ruined the entire mission.
The intelligence professionals said they did not know for sure that bin Laden was in the compound. The case was good, but circumstantial. The likelihood, officials told the President, was between 50% and 80%. No slam dunk. Obama went around the table asking everyone to state their opinion. He quizzed his staff about worst case scenarios - the possibility of civilian casualties, a hostage situation, a diplomatic blow-up with Pakistan, a downed helicopter. He was presented with three options: Wait to gather more intelligence, attack with targeted bombs from the air, or go in on the ground with troops. The room was divided about 50-50, said a person in the room. John Brennan, the President's senior counter-terrorism adviser, supported a ground strike, as did the operational people, including Leon Panetta at the CIA. Others called for more time. In the end, about half of the senior aides supported a helicopter assault. The other half said either wait, or strike from above.
Obama left the meeting without signaling his intent. He wanted to sleep on it. At about 8:00 a.m. on Friday, just before he boarded a helicopter that would take him to tour tornado damage in Alabama, Obama called his senior aides into the Diplomatic Room. He told them his decision: A helicopter assault. At that point, the operation was taken out of his hands. He was trusting the fate of his presidency to luck. He was putting his presidency in the hands of history.
Sea Burial Sparks Questions(By Zachary Roth)
Amid the justified celebrations over the killing of Osama bin Laden, an awkward question is starting to rear its head: Did U.S. policymakers err in burying the al Qaeda leader at sea?
Already, the decision has provoked criticism from some Islamic scholars, who say a maritime burial isn't in keeping with Muslim law. And there are signs that the move could help fuel skepticism, especially among President Obama's critics, about whether bin Laden was really killed at all.
The Pentagon has said the body was treated in accordance with traditional Islamic procedures--including washing the corpse--before it was placed in the waters of the northern Arabian Sea.
U.S. officials have said they wanted to avoid the al Qaeda leader's grave site becoming a shrine for his followers. They've also said it would have been difficult to find a foreign country willing to accept bin Laden's remains, especially in so short a time: Islamic tradition and practice call for the body of the deceased to be buried within 24 hours of death.
But several Muslim authorities said today that the sea burial in fact violated Muslim tradition--and warned that it could help trigger calls for revenge from militant Muslims.
The sea burial "runs contrary to the principles of Islamic laws, religious values and humanitarian customs," Sheik Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand Imam of Cairo's al-Azhar mosque, told the AP.
And Mohammed al-Qubaisi, Dubai's grand mufti, echoed that view. "If the family does not want him, it's really simple in Islam: You dig up a grave anywhere, even on a remote island, you say the prayers and that's it."
He added: "Sea burials are permissible for Muslims in extraordinary circumstances," he added. "This is not one of them."
And Abdul-Sattar al-Janabi, who preaches at Baghdad's Abu Hanifa mosque declared: "It is not acceptable, and it is almost a crime to throw the body of a Muslim man into the sea," adding that the action "might provoke some Muslims."
But the religious verdict may not be quite that open and shut. Imam Shamsi Ali, of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, told The Lookout that in emergency circumstances, any Islamic law can be overlooked. "For example, you're not allowed to eat pork," he said, but added that if you were starving to death, it would be considered acceptable. Ali said that because the United States appears to have been unable to find a country to take bin Laden's body within 24 hours, this might have qualified as such an emergency.
Islamic practices aside, the decision is already triggering conspiracy theories that cast doubt on whether bin Laden is truly dead--even though DNA testing is said to have confirmed with virtual certainty that the al Qaeda leader was indeed killed. An assertion by Pakistan's Taliban that bin Laden is still living was picked up on several users of the conservative website FreeRepublic.com. In addition, one writer on the Andrew Breitbart website Big Peace called for bin Laden's body to be"digitally scanned" so that Americans could verify his death for themselves. On Twitter, Emily Miller, an editor at the conservative Washington Times, demanded a photo of the body as "proof."
Skepticism could only increase in some quarters if the Obama administration declines to release photos of bin Laden's body. No decision has yet been made on that question, according to White House counter-terror adviser John Brennan, who said this afternoon that doing so could jeopardize future operations.
Happiness and PainBy LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press
NEW YORK – Nearly 10 years after his wife was killed at the World Trade Center, Charles Wolf still falls asleep each night on one side of his bed.
On Monday, news of the death of the man who helped orchestrate that emptiness brought Wolf a muted joy. He declared himself glad it was finally over — still aware that, for him, it never really can be.
"This is a feeling of happiness, but not jump-up-and-down happiness," said Wolf, who lost his wife, Katherine, in the attacks. "The idea of closure is something that really, really — it doesn't exist, to tell you the truth."
Family members of those lost on Sept. 11 reflected Monday on a decade of grief that cannot be erased by any worldly victory. Still, the death of the shadowy figure who had taken pleasure in their sorrow brought some a sense of relief.
"I'd like to think that all the people who were murdered on Sept. 11 are celebrating," said Maureen Santora, whose firefighter son, Christopher, was killed in the collapsed towers. She said she knows her son, who died at age 23, would have been "dancing in the streets" at word of bin Laden's death.
"I can hear him up in heaven yelling and screaming," she said. "I can see him being just thrilled."
But she, too, said there would be no closure for her. Instead, "There will be a hole in my heart until the day I die," she said.
When he heard of bin Laden's death, Mike Low went into the bedroom that had belonged to his daughter Sara before the flight attendant was killed aboard American Airlines Flight 11. He sat down in front of a glass case holding his daughter's remains, and he told her the news.
"For my family and I, it's good, it's desirable, it's right," said the Batesville, Ark., resident. "It certainly brings an ending to a major quest for all of us."
Whatever the feelings brought up by the close of the hunt for bin Laden, victory was absent for Gene Yancey, who remains haunted by thoughts of the last minutes of his daughter Kathryn L. LaBorie, who was the head flight attendant on United Airlines Flight 175.
"Justice has prevailed, I guess," said the Colorado Springs, Colo., resident. "It's good in a lot of ways and I'm glad they got him, but I'm so sad about my daughter."
Lifelong Catholic Barbara Minervino found herself struggling yet again with a central tenet of her faith: forgiveness.
"As I lay my head down on the pillow last night, I said, `Lord, are you really going to forgive him?' I don't want to. I don't know that I can ever forgive him," said the Middletown, N.J., resident, whose husband, Louis, was killed in the Sept. 11 attacks.
"I just pray that however I'm supposed to feel, I'll eventually feel," she said. "If God wants to forgive him, that's God. I can't."
Others relished what felt like a touch of retribution after years of delay.
"I would hope that Osama bin Laden was subject to the same brutal and prolonged death that my son and all the other victims had on 9/11," said Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son, Christian, died at the World Trade Center.
And for some, bin Laden's death was not an end but only a milestone in a lifelong undertaking.
"The story of 9/11 is not over," said Anthoula Katsimatides, who on Monday joined public officials at the World Trade Center site, where her brother John perished. It remains important, she said, "to tell everyone, future generations, of what happened that day."
Wolf said he first learned of the news when a friend telephoned him Sunday night, saying excitedly: "You know that guy that killed your wife. They got him!"
After that, he said, he had chills for an hour or two — a "tingling, tingling all over me."
"There's one man, there's one piece of evil energy — tremendously evil energy — that is off of this planet," Wolf said. "It is out of this physical realm and God will throw his soul in hell, the depths of hell. And you can be sure of that. There's no court on earth that could have done what the final judge has done."
Still, none of that changes the lingering sense of absence at night, as he makes room for the woman who is no longer there.
"That other side is empty still," he said. "I still miss her."
Contributing to this report were Associated Press videojournalist Bonny Ghosh and writers Verena Dobnik, Tom Hays and Tom McElroy in New York, and writers Nomaan Merchant in Little Rock, Ark., Wayne Parry in Middletown, N.J., and Michelle R. Smith in Providence, R.I.
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