The Murder of Osama Bin Laden. U S Pakistan Partners in Crime Seymour Hersh

[Amaa'n]

don't be a jerk, I know that, but why is his name not made public?

As per Abottabad Commission report - that was leaked some 2 years back, the person in question is Former retd Lt.Col Saeed iqbal, who as per report left the country in the coming days after the raids.....
I suggest you read that report or read the excerpts here:
The case of Saeed Iqbal

There was other spy work related to potential targets in Abbottabad, that also happened without the government's knowledge. The Commission investigated the case of Saeed Iqbal, a retired Pakistan Army Lieutenant-Colonel who was once assigned to the ISI, who visited one of Bin Laden's neighbours as many as three times in the months leading up to the raid. Iqbal was driving a bulletproof vehicle, and took several photographs from the roof of the neighbouring house.

Lt-Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, then director-general of the ISI, testified that Iqbal had been retired "on disciplinary grounds" and had established a private security business. He "disappeared", according to the ISI, two days after the operation to kill Bin Laden on May 1, 2011. His profile, according to Lt-Gen Pasha, "matched that of a likely CIA recruit".
While a private security contractor such as Iqbal was looking into Osama Bin Laden's whereabouts, however, the ISI had "closed the file" on Bin Laden after the CIA reportedly stopped sharing information on the hunt for the al-Qaeda chief in 2005. This was despite the fact that Bin Laden had released an audio recording as late as January 2011, whose authenticity was verified through voice analysis. According to ISI assessments, ISI officials said, Bin Laden was either dead or inactive, and the lack of intelligence sharing from the CIA was seen as indicative that this was the US view, as well.


P.S: this all info has been out since July 2013, and many media houses have covered this story, then why all of a sudden all this hullahoop as if they were sleeping under a rock -----
those who have read this report will understand the discrepancies found in everyone's testimony....as i recall we never denied anything stated in this report officially ---
where is @vcheng uncle when you need him --- he has read the report too
@Bratva, did you get the chance to review it?

 

[Shamain]

So people read the entire one mile long report.

Phew!!

Anyways,when this seymour quotes Asad durrani kind of man he simply loses credibility.

Secondly,laden wasnt there. Lets say, if isi was protecting him and knew of his presence, by keeping him in populated exposed areas, wouldnt they have feared some foreign intel spy figuring it out and giving tip off to america. we did have lot of spies swarming in our territory at that time, many working under ngo banners some as journos.

America had gone into a senseless war, where she badly failed, got humiliated, faced massive shame, dented economy, wanted to have a face saving exit. What else could have been the best news than setting up a drama of laden's death.to prove to her ppl that the war had a purpose.

Now that they entered our territory how they werent detected by our radars ,and why nothing was done when apparetnly they were carrying out operation is all weird.
Why our airforce didnt retaliate. how they were allowed to do whatever they were doing on our soil!

 

[Thorough Pro]

Thanks bro, somehow I never read this report, guess I'll have to read it now.

As per Abottabad Commission report - that was leaked some 2 years back, the person in question is Former retd Lt.Col Saeed iqbal, who as per report left the country in the coming days after the raids.....
I suggest you read that report or read the experts here:
The case of Saeed Iqbal

There was other spy work related to potential targets in Abbottabad, that also happened without the government's knowledge. The Commission investigated the case of Saeed Iqbal, a retired Pakistan Army Lieutenant-Colonel who was once assigned to the ISI, who visited one of Bin Laden's neighbours as many as three times in the months leading up to the raid. Iqbal was driving a bulletproof vehicle, and took several photographs from the roof of the neighbouring house.

Lt-Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, then director-general of the ISI, testified that Iqbal had been retired "on disciplinary grounds" and had established a private security business. He "disappeared", according to the ISI, two days after the operation to kill Bin Laden on May 1, 2011. His profile, according to Lt-Gen Pasha, "matched that of a likely CIA recruit".
While a private security contractor such as Iqbal was looking into Osama Bin Laden's whereabouts, however, the ISI had "closed the file" on Bin Laden after the CIA reportedly stopped sharing information on the hunt for the al-Qaeda chief in 2005. This was despite the fact that Bin Laden had released an audio recording as late as January 2011, whose authenticity was verified through voice analysis. According to ISI assessments, ISI officials said, Bin Laden was either dead or inactive, and the lack of intelligence sharing from the CIA was seen as indicative that this was the US view, as well.


P.S: this all info has been out since July 2013, and many media houses have covered this story, then why all of a sudden all this hullahoop as if they were sleeping under a rock -----
those who have read this report will understand the discrepancies found in everyone's testimoney
where is @vcheng uncle when you need him --- he has read the report too
@Bratva, did you get the chance to review it?

 

[Amaa'n]

Thanks bro, somehow I never read this report, guess I'll have to read it now.

Good luck reading 337 pages
and spoiler alert: once you read the report, you will be really really pissed at the state machinery & wondering, how the heck did we even manage to stay as a country for all those years

 

[nik22]

The ISI officer who did not turn up for work the next day!

People saying to kill that officer, family should ask themselves. If they have offer of $25m and comfortable life in US after, how many people will refuse that? Knowing also if you don't do someone else will.

 

[Azad-Kashmiri]

People saying to kill that officer, family should ask themselves. If they have offer of $25m and comfortable life in US after, how many people will refuse that? Knowing also if you don't do someone else will.

Those are the type of people who i detest. They have no principles and honour. The rogue agent should be hunted down and taken care off.

 

[anant_s]

WASHINGTON: Senior Pakistani army generals and top ISI honchos purportedly hosted Osama bin Laden in an Abbottabad hideout since 2006 before selling him out to the US in 2011 after a Pakistani intelligence officer betrayed him for the $25 million bounty, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed.

In a 10,000-word piece in the London Review of Books, Hersh, famed for his exposes on US excesses during the Vietnam War and after, also alleges that the US raid on Abbottabad was pretty much a cakewalk after Pakistan's then top generals, Army chief Pervez Ashfaq Kayani and ISI head Ahmad Shuja Pasha, cooperated with the Americans under both threats and inducements, including personal blandishments.

President Obama, Hersh suggests, milked the episode for domestic political gains, including a second term re-election, after reneging on US promises to Pakistan about when and how the raid would be revealed to the world.

People walk past Osama Bin Laden's compound, where he was killed during a raid by U.S. special forces, May 3, 2011 in Abottabad, Pakistan. Bin Laden was killed during a U.S. military mission May 2, at the compound. (Getty Images)

Hersh has based much of his account on one principal source -- an unnamed and retired senior US intelligence official -- and a couple of tenuous corroborative sources in a piece that has set political Washington alight. Government officials and critics often dismiss his style of journalism quoting anonymous sources to make outlandish claims, but editors who publish his work have said in the past they are aware the names of his sources and have no reason to doubt his work.

According to Hersh, the story of the bin Laden raid began with the August 2010 walk-in of a senior Pakistani intelligence officer, who told the CIA station chief at the US Embassy in Islamabad Jonathan Banks he could reveal bin Laden's location in return for reward money. Skeptical Americans then flew in a polygraph team to check his claims (he passed the test) before cornering Pasha (during a visit to Washington) and Kayani. Hersh and his source put a protective spin on Pakistani perfidy by rationalizing their hosting of the man who killed 3,000 Americans, maintaining that - ''if you have someone like Osama bin Laden, you are not going to simply hand him over to the United States without a quid pro quo.''

The quid pro quo in this case not only involved continued of US military aid to Pakistan, ''a good percentage of which was anti-terrorism funding that finances personal security, such as bullet-proof limousines and security guards and housing for the ISI leadership,'' but also personal bribing, ''under-the-table personal 'incentives' that were financed by off-the-books Pentagon contingency funds.'' The US also promised Pakistan 'a freer hand' in Afghanistan as it began its military draw-down there.

Consequent to this secret deal, the Pakistani generals gave the US bin Laden's precise coordinates -- right down to the location of his room in the Abbottabad bungalow - and also ensured he was left with no protection. ISI guards protecting bin Laden were asked to leave as soon as they heard U.S choppers, and electricity to the area was cut off. They also made sure Pakistan's army and air defence command would not track or engage with the US helicopters used on the mission.

According to the Hersh's American sources, the raid was virtual walk-in and walk-out and the Navy Seals virtually shot dead an unarmed, invalid man. Hersh also claims there was no burial at sea with Islamic rites for bin Laden on the USS Carl Vinson, as the U.S later claimed; the old man had been shot to pieces during the raid and his body parts were tossed over the Hindu Kush as the raiding party returned to Afghanisan.

The story claims that Obama decided to immediately go public with the raid in part because of the botch-up with the stalled helicopter which had to be destroyed, making it hard to keep the raid a secret. But he also had political motives. ''The killing of bin Laden was political theatre designed to burnish Obama's military credentials. It's irresistible to a politician. Bin Laden became a working asset,'' Hersh quotes one of his sources as saying.

Hersh's piece also reveals the US actually sold Shakil Afridi, a CIA asset, down the drain, asking Pakistanis to nab him while springing free Amir Aziz, a doctor and a major in the Pakistani army who was instrumental in getting bin Laden's DNA sample that conclusively proved his identity. Amir was also rewarded from the $ 25 million bounty.

The ISI, the story claims, initially got onto bin Laden, who had lived undetected from 2001 to 2006 with some of his wives and children in the Hindu Kush mountains, by paying some of the local tribal people to betray him. Hersh's account also maintains the Saudis were fully aware of Pakistan's protective custody of bin Laden and in fact they paid Pakistanis to keep him under wraps.

Pakistani generals 'sold' bin Laden to US: Report - The Times of India

 

[gambit]

I did not assume any such notebook. However I did assume the office of President is a executive post. Executive by definition implies a office that requires finely crafted decisions based on complex variables informed by reasoned logic but tempered with wisdom.

And that it is rare that the same solution is applied to different countries.

To cut it short you expect some common sense in what decisions are made unless you end up electing a nutter on the lines of Muamar Gaddafi. In which case god help you. Can we however safely assume that the collective genius of the US electorate prevents a nutter being elected to the White House?

No need for genius. Just common sense will do.

Given this, all available evidence points to Pakistan not being guilty. How so then and on what basis do you still clutch for some reason to adjudge Pakistan complicit? Is it case of gut feeling or partiality informing your disposition toward Pakistan? In which case we are damned eithier way.

There are two ways to look at 'Pakistan'...Or any country, for that matter...

Pakistan as a political entity and Pakistan as a country.

Pakistan as a political entity usually mean the government is prominent. Pakistan as a country mean the geographical entity is prominent.

Assume that political Pakistan was outsmarted by OBL who took advantage of sympathizers among the people and hid inside the general population, we can extend some level of understanding towards the Pakistani government and clear the political Pakistan of all guilt. However, because those low level sympathizers managed to escape the Pakistani government's intelligence and police services, we can indict the geographical Pakistan, as in looking at the map and point to => 'Pakistan', as a 'safe haven' for OBL. For Afghanistan, the US wholesale indicted the political Afghanistan because we actually negotiated with Omar, to the point of actually sending him a satellite phone so he can speak directly to the President, for Afghanistan to stop working and harboring OBL.

Believe it or not, we have done the same to several European countries whose Muslim communities helped the 9/11 hijackers even if just a little. We did not say those European governments were guilty of assistance to the hijackers, but we did say for A B C thru Z reasons, these countries inadvertently and innocently assisted the hijackers at so-and-so junctures in the hijackers' progress. We even indicted ourselves for our institutional gaps, hence the many restructuring of US domestic security policies, for worse or better is for a different discussion.

 

[I.R.A]

LOL. Good to know that ISI and Pak Army will sell their own mother for the right price

Just one last question ? Does the ISI train Somali pirate too or do the pirates train ISI ?

They too release people for the right price

@Irfan Baloch @Horus @waz

Thank you.

 

[SBD-3]

don't be a jerk, I know that, but why is his name not made public?

Brig Usman Khalid, now a US citizen along with the family. No wonder most Generals end up in States after retirement. Ditch the land they "vow to protect".

 

[Indus Pakistan]

@gambit

Yes, I can live with what you said. Do I think he had help from groups within Pakistan. You bet. The argument that he was hiding one mile from the military academy is ridicalous. What does it prove. A most wanted in America hiding near West Point presumably has higher chance of being caught?

Military academy does not as policy scour the area for any wanted OBL types. It was a Military Academy period. Anyway I think we can end with this on more or less same page.

What people forget is Pakistan and US have had a long relationship now with high and lows. From hosting the US Airbase that saw Gary Powers U-2 spy plane being shot down in Soviet Union in 1963 to the largest covert war in history, Operation Cyclone made into a film by Hollywood - Charlie Wilson's War.

To the recent war in Afghanistan I think it is safe to say it has been at times difficult but enduring relationship.

1960 U-2 incident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In July 1957, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower requested permission from Pakistan's Prime Minister Hussain Sohrawady for the U.S. to establish a secret intelligence facility in Pakistan and for the U-2 spyplane to fly from Pakistan. The U-2 flew at altitudes that could not be reached by Soviet fighter jets of the era; it was believed to be beyond the reach of Soviet missiles as well. A facility established in Badaber (Peshawar Air Station), 10 miles (16 km) from Peshawar, was a cover for a major communications intercept operation run by the United States National Security Agency (NSA). Badaber was an excellent location because of its proximity to Soviet central Asia. This enabled the monitoring of missile test sites, key infrastructure and communications. The U-2 "spy-in-the-sky" was allowed to use the Pakistan Air Force portion of Peshawar Airport to gain vital photo intelligence in an era before satellite observation.[4]

It all started off in the days of President Ayub Khan and President Kennedy/Lyndon B. Johnson

Ayub Khan, Eisonhower and Kennedy early 1960s

 

[Amaa'n]

Amir Mir - enough said

Brig Usman Khalid, now a US citizen along with the family. No wonder most Generals end up in States after retirement. Ditch the land they "vow to protect".

 

[anant_s]

@Irfan Baloch
Sir you are authority on these subjects and hence can answer the question.
Officially establishment in Pakistan still maintains the line that OBL's presence was not known, but the fact remains someone in power knew all along. Coalition forces tried many hard and long years of hunt in Pak-Af border, in vain, to get OBL. Finally they must have known one thing that if OBL is hiding, Taliban in no position to support him, if the bounty on his head can be increased, chances are they'll find him.
With budget of billions of dollars for WoT, 25 million in just peanuts, considering the trophy value it had in American public minds.
Is there, therefore a fair chance that someone actually spilled the beans about OBL, as the report suggests.
& maybe the reward was much higher than what is told?
Also strategically (in terms of counter terrorism operations), it isn't a bad ploy to try and purchase information around a target. It is far more economical and effective intelligence source (as it is pin pointed) that other conventional methods.

 

[SBD-3]

Amir Mir - enough said

Yes, since you know the "facts".....

IntelliBriefs: Brig (Ret) Usman Khalid , ex-ISI man threatening Baloch Nationalists and Diaspora

 

[Transhumanist]

WASHINGTON: Senior Pakistani army generals and top ISI honchos purportedly hosted Osama bin Laden in an Abbottabad hideout since 2006 before selling him out to the US in 2011 after a Pakistani intelligence officer betrayed him for the $25 million bounty, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed.

In a 10,000-word piece in the London Review of Books, Hersh, famed for his exposes on US excesses during the Vietnam War and after, also alleges that the US raid on Abbottabad was pretty much a cakewalk after Pakistan's then top generals, Army chief Pervez Ashfaq Kayani and ISI head Ahmad Shuja Pasha, cooperated with the Americans under both threats and inducements, including personal blandishments.

President Obama, Hersh suggests, milked the episode for domestic political gains, including a second term re-election, after reneging on US promises to Pakistan about when and how the raid would be revealed to the world.

People walk past Osama Bin Laden's compound, where he was killed during a raid by U.S. special forces, May 3, 2011 in Abottabad, Pakistan. Bin Laden was killed during a U.S. military mission May 2, at the compound. (Getty Images)

Hersh has based much of his account on one principal source -- an unnamed and retired senior US intelligence official -- and a couple of tenuous corroborative sources in a piece that has set political Washington alight. Government officials and critics often dismiss his style of journalism quoting anonymous sources to make outlandish claims, but editors who publish his work have said in the past they are aware the names of his sources and have no reason to doubt his work.

According to Hersh, the story of the bin Laden raid began with the August 2010 walk-in of a senior Pakistani intelligence officer, who told the CIA station chief at the US Embassy in Islamabad Jonathan Banks he could reveal bin Laden's location in return for reward money. Skeptical Americans then flew in a polygraph team to check his claims (he passed the test) before cornering Pasha (during a visit to Washington) and Kayani. Hersh and his source put a protective spin on Pakistani perfidy by rationalizing their hosting of the man who killed 3,000 Americans, maintaining that - ''if you have someone like Osama bin Laden, you are not going to simply hand him over to the United States without a quid pro quo.''

The quid pro quo in this case not only involved continued of US military aid to Pakistan, ''a good percentage of which was anti-terrorism funding that finances personal security, such as bullet-proof limousines and security guards and housing for the ISI leadership,'' but also personal bribing, ''under-the-table personal 'incentives' that were financed by off-the-books Pentagon contingency funds.'' The US also promised Pakistan 'a freer hand' in Afghanistan as it began its military draw-down there.

Consequent to this secret deal, the Pakistani generals gave the US bin Laden's precise coordinates -- right down to the location of his room in the Abbottabad bungalow - and also ensured he was left with no protection. ISI guards protecting bin Laden were asked to leave as soon as they heard U.S choppers, and electricity to the area was cut off. They also made sure Pakistan's army and air defence command would not track or engage with the US helicopters used on the mission.

According to the Hersh's American sources, the raid was virtual walk-in and walk-out and the Navy Seals virtually shot dead an unarmed, invalid man. Hersh also claims there was no burial at sea with Islamic rites for bin Laden on the USS Carl Vinson, as the U.S later claimed; the old man had been shot to pieces during the raid and his body parts were tossed over the Hindu Kush as the raiding party returned to Afghanisan.

The story claims that Obama decided to immediately go public with the raid in part because of the botch-up with the stalled helicopter which had to be destroyed, making it hard to keep the raid a secret. But he also had political motives. ''The killing of bin Laden was political theatre designed to burnish Obama's military credentials. It's irresistible to a politician. Bin Laden became a working asset,'' Hersh quotes one of his sources as saying.

Hersh's piece also reveals the US actually sold Shakil Afridi, a CIA asset, down the drain, asking Pakistanis to nab him while springing free Amir Aziz, a doctor and a major in the Pakistani army who was instrumental in getting bin Laden's DNA sample that conclusively proved his identity. Amir was also rewarded from the $ 25 million bounty.

The ISI, the story claims, initially got onto bin Laden, who had lived undetected from 2001 to 2006 with some of his wives and children in the Hindu Kush mountains, by paying some of the local tribal people to betray him. Hersh's account also maintains the Saudis were fully aware of Pakistan's protective custody of bin Laden and in fact they paid Pakistanis to keep him under wraps.

Pakistani generals 'sold' bin Laden to US: Report - The Times of India

Read this too, there are plenty of holes and issues/contradictions in Seymour Hersh's story. It shouldn't be taken as factual without an examination and investigation. Right now it's not being viewed as valid.

The many problems with Seymour Hersh's Osama bin Laden conspiracy theory - Vox