Bin Laden: after Abbottabad (merged thread)

[Bill Moore]

Hersh has a long history of inaccurate reporting and even lying, which he justified in one case as attempt to force his sources to provide a corrective. Hersh's article is full of inaccuracies, thus it has no credibility, but like many others he suspects there is more to the story regarding our relationship with Pakistan's ISI. I suspect there is more to that story also, but I don't think Hersh identified it. Most people see his article as crap, and only the true conspiracy theorists gave it any cred at all. Heck, the conspiracy about the CIA conducting the 9/11 attacks received more attention than this terrible report.

There is always more to the story, sounds like Hersh is deliberately lying again in an attempt to get government officials to provide a corrective and the rest of the story. However, his version is so laughable it actually backfired.

[davidbfpo]

Five years on from Bin Laden's demise Frank Gardner, BBC SEcurity Correspondent, has this short review and concludes:

But as the global effort grinds on to defeat or at least contain violent Islamic extremism, the absence of such a charismatic figure as OBL was to his followers makes it unlikely that such a decisive one-off moment as his death five years ago will ever be repeated.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-36127770

[davidbfpo]

Thanks to a "lurker" for the pointer to this article from Harvard Business Review 'The Former Head of the CIA on Managing the Hunt for Bin Laden' by Leon Panetta and Jeremy Bash:https://hbr.org/2016/05/leadership-l...-laden-manhunt

Needless to say one reviewer is not that keen:

The article in .. is a concise example of the self-licking ice cream cone that we call the CIA. Like all great IO pieces, the article starts with a common truth but then descends into a power point promotional piece designed to ensure, nay I say increase funding and mystic to an organization that has eroded into one giant risk adverse platform that will not identify their failures, much less learn from them.
Those of us that have worked and moved in and out of the ether will attest to the sad but inevitable decline of this once strong organization. When budgets are “black” and accomplishments are “classified” it takes real leadership integrity and self-analysis to grow and achieve success. Unfortunately, the field tradecraft of “lie, lie, and launch counter accusations” has crossed the pond and made its way to the 7th floor. Bottom line, we (America) knew where Bin Laden was in the fall of 2008. Enjoy your article.

Link:https://theramsdellbrief.com/2016/05...siness-review/

[davidbfpo]

The CIA's official statement is fully titled: 'November 2017 Release of Abbottabad Compound Material' and one expects some will find items of value after a long time. Minus a number of copyrighted videos.

Link to Statement:https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottab...und/index.html

Link to press release:https://www.cia.gov/news-information...ound-raid.html

The CIA provided FDD’s Long War Journal with an advance copy of many of the files and so they have a number of valuable points to make (I have separately done a post in the AQ-Iran thread).
Link:https://www.longwarjournal.org/archi...dens-files.php