Do you think we’ve gotten the full story on exactly how Osama bin Laden was killed earlier this year? Better think again. One former Navy SEAL says the story we’ve been fed is nothing more than an elaborate “fairy tale.”
“It became obvious in the weeks evolving after the mission that the story that was getting put out there was not only untrue, but it was a really ugly farce of what did happen,” said Chuck Pfarrer, author of “Seal Target Geronimo: The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama Bin Laden”.
In an extensive interview, Pfarrer explains why he thinks the record should be corrected.
Pfarrer rejects almost the entire blow-by-blow account of the mission that was printed in the New Yorker in August.
“The version of the 45-minute firefight, and the ground-up assault, and the cold-blooded murder on the third floor – that wasn’t the mission,” Pfarrer told The Daily Caller.
“I had to try and figure out, well, look: Why is this story not what I’m hearing? Why is it so off and how is it so off?” he recounted. “One of the things I sort of determined was, OK, somebody was told ‘one of the insertion helicopters crashed.’ OK, well that got muddled to ‘a helicopter crashed on insertion.’”
The helicopters entered the compound as planned, with “Razor 1″ unloading its team of SEALs on the roof of the compound – not on the ground level as had previously been thought. There was no crash landing yet either…that wouldn’t actually happen until after bin Laden had been killed.
Meanwhile, “Razor 2″ took up a hovering position so that its snipers had a clear view of anyone trying to escape from the compound.
The SEALs then dropped down from the roof, stormed the third floor, and found bin Laden in his room. He was not standing still.
“He dived across the king-size bed to get at the AKSU rifle he kept by the headboard,” writes Pfarrer in his book. At that precise moment, just 90 seconds after the SEALs first landed on the roof, two U.S. bullets hit bin Laden in the chest ad head, killing him instantly.
Pfarrer also says that President Barack Obama‘s decision to publicly announce bin Laden’s death squandered much of the intelligence that had been gathered that night.
“There was a choice that night,” Pfarrer says. “There was a choice to keep the mission secret.”
U.S. forces could have let things be for “weeks or months … even though there was evidence left on the ground there … and use the intelligence and finish off al-Qaida.”
Obama’s announcement, though, “rendered moot all of the intelligence that was gathered from the nexus of al-Qaida. The computer drives, the hard drives, the videocasettes, the CDs, the thumb drives, everything. Before that could even be looked through, the political decision was made to take credit for the operation.”
Several politicians would jump on board in the days that followed, trying to leak as much new info on the mission as they could.
“None of those guys (watching the live feed of the mission from the White House), not a single one of them, had a background in special operations, with the exception of General Webb who was sitting there running a laptop,” Pfarrer went on. “No one knew or could even imagine what was going on inside the building. They didn’t know.”
“There was an alternative feed going to CIA headquarters where Leon Panetta sat there with the communications brevity codes [a guide sheet for the mission's radio lingo] in his lap and a SEAL off-screen by his side to be able to tell him what was going on,” he said. “But these guys, none of them, really knew what they were looking at.”
Things got even murkier. Soon after, statements from as high as then-CIA Director Leon Panetta offered confirmation that the endeavor was a “kill mission.”
Pfarrer dismisses that notion.
“An order to go in and murder someone in their house is not a lawful order,” says Pfarrer, who maintains that bin Laden would have been captured had he surrendered. “Unlike the Germans in World War II, if you’re a petty officer, a chief petty officer, a naval officer, and you’re giving an order to murder somebody, that’s an unlawful order.”
Pfarrer goes on to suggest that some of the claims being made were nothing more than “fairy tales.”
“The story they tried to tell – it’s preposterous. And the CIA tried to jump in. About mid-June the CIA tried to jump into the car and drive the victory lap. There’s this whole stuff about the CIA guy joining the operation, the gallant interpreter – he couldn’t even fast rope!” exclaimed Pfarrer, referring to a technique used to descend from an airborne helicopter.
“There’s this fairy tale about him walking out of the compound during the operation to tell crowds of Pakistanis to go home and everything’s OK.”
Pfarrer gets a good laugh from that one.
“Do you mean that during the middle of this military operation at night, with hovering helicopters over this odd house in this neighborhood, that people came out of their houses to ask what’s going on, instead of [remaining] huddled in their basement?”
“And I think that there were so many of these leaks that were incorrect, the administration couldn’t walk them all back,” Pfarrer explained. “And so, in the middle of May, they froze everything.”
That left Chuck Pfarrer with nowhere to go for the real scoop but straight to the Navy SEALs themselves.
Pfarrer says that “Seal Target Geronimo: The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama Bin Laden” is “absolutely factual.”
“That’s the other thing. I’m prepared for the White House to say, you know, ‘this is full of inaccuracies,’ et cetera,” saysPfarrer. He says that, in an attempt to protect American interests, his book is “full of names that are made up, and it is full of bases that are not quite where they really should be.”
“But the timeline of my events,” he adds, “and the manner in which it happened is 100 percent accurate. And they’ll know that.”
“It became obvious in the weeks evolving after the mission that the story that was getting put out there was not only untrue, but it was a really ugly farce of what did happen,” said Chuck Pfarrer, author of “Seal Target Geronimo: The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama Bin Laden”.
In an extensive interview, Pfarrer explains why he thinks the record should be corrected.
Pfarrer rejects almost the entire blow-by-blow account of the mission that was printed in the New Yorker in August.
“The version of the 45-minute firefight, and the ground-up assault, and the cold-blooded murder on the third floor – that wasn’t the mission,” Pfarrer told The Daily Caller.
“I had to try and figure out, well, look: Why is this story not what I’m hearing? Why is it so off and how is it so off?” he recounted. “One of the things I sort of determined was, OK, somebody was told ‘one of the insertion helicopters crashed.’ OK, well that got muddled to ‘a helicopter crashed on insertion.’”
The helicopters entered the compound as planned, with “Razor 1″ unloading its team of SEALs on the roof of the compound – not on the ground level as had previously been thought. There was no crash landing yet either…that wouldn’t actually happen until after bin Laden had been killed.
Meanwhile, “Razor 2″ took up a hovering position so that its snipers had a clear view of anyone trying to escape from the compound.
The SEALs then dropped down from the roof, stormed the third floor, and found bin Laden in his room. He was not standing still.
“He dived across the king-size bed to get at the AKSU rifle he kept by the headboard,” writes Pfarrer in his book. At that precise moment, just 90 seconds after the SEALs first landed on the roof, two U.S. bullets hit bin Laden in the chest ad head, killing him instantly.
Pfarrer also says that President Barack Obama‘s decision to publicly announce bin Laden’s death squandered much of the intelligence that had been gathered that night.
“There was a choice that night,” Pfarrer says. “There was a choice to keep the mission secret.”
U.S. forces could have let things be for “weeks or months … even though there was evidence left on the ground there … and use the intelligence and finish off al-Qaida.”
Obama’s announcement, though, “rendered moot all of the intelligence that was gathered from the nexus of al-Qaida. The computer drives, the hard drives, the videocasettes, the CDs, the thumb drives, everything. Before that could even be looked through, the political decision was made to take credit for the operation.”
Several politicians would jump on board in the days that followed, trying to leak as much new info on the mission as they could.
“None of those guys (watching the live feed of the mission from the White House), not a single one of them, had a background in special operations, with the exception of General Webb who was sitting there running a laptop,” Pfarrer went on. “No one knew or could even imagine what was going on inside the building. They didn’t know.”
“There was an alternative feed going to CIA headquarters where Leon Panetta sat there with the communications brevity codes [a guide sheet for the mission's radio lingo] in his lap and a SEAL off-screen by his side to be able to tell him what was going on,” he said. “But these guys, none of them, really knew what they were looking at.”
Things got even murkier. Soon after, statements from as high as then-CIA Director Leon Panetta offered confirmation that the endeavor was a “kill mission.”
Pfarrer dismisses that notion.
“An order to go in and murder someone in their house is not a lawful order,” says Pfarrer, who maintains that bin Laden would have been captured had he surrendered. “Unlike the Germans in World War II, if you’re a petty officer, a chief petty officer, a naval officer, and you’re giving an order to murder somebody, that’s an unlawful order.”
Pfarrer goes on to suggest that some of the claims being made were nothing more than “fairy tales.”
“The story they tried to tell – it’s preposterous. And the CIA tried to jump in. About mid-June the CIA tried to jump into the car and drive the victory lap. There’s this whole stuff about the CIA guy joining the operation, the gallant interpreter – he couldn’t even fast rope!” exclaimed Pfarrer, referring to a technique used to descend from an airborne helicopter.
“There’s this fairy tale about him walking out of the compound during the operation to tell crowds of Pakistanis to go home and everything’s OK.”
Pfarrer gets a good laugh from that one.
“Do you mean that during the middle of this military operation at night, with hovering helicopters over this odd house in this neighborhood, that people came out of their houses to ask what’s going on, instead of [remaining] huddled in their basement?”
“And I think that there were so many of these leaks that were incorrect, the administration couldn’t walk them all back,” Pfarrer explained. “And so, in the middle of May, they froze everything.”
That left Chuck Pfarrer with nowhere to go for the real scoop but straight to the Navy SEALs themselves.
Pfarrer says that “Seal Target Geronimo: The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama Bin Laden” is “absolutely factual.”
“That’s the other thing. I’m prepared for the White House to say, you know, ‘this is full of inaccuracies,’ et cetera,” saysPfarrer. He says that, in an attempt to protect American interests, his book is “full of names that are made up, and it is full of bases that are not quite where they really should be.”
“But the timeline of my events,” he adds, “and the manner in which it happened is 100 percent accurate. And they’ll know that.”
