'Baseless' and 'every sentence...was wrong': Claims Obama lied about how Osama bin Laden died come under fire - but veteran reporter stands by his account
- Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh made the claim in a 10,000 word article for the London Review of Books
- White House disputed report, saying it was 'riddled' with inaccuracies as well as 'baseless assertions'
- 'It’s all wrong,' former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell said. I stopped a third of the way in 'because every sentence I was reading was wrong'
- Hersh's report relies heavily on an unnamed, 'major U.S. source,' who is also described in the piece as a 'retired senior intelligence official'
- Claims he 'vetted most and verified' his sourcing and did his own, additional reporting from Pakistan, however
White
House and CIA officials are aggressively disputing a report that
President Barack Obama lied to the public about the role of Pakistan
special forces in the raid that killed former al Qaeda head Osama bin
Laden so he could take credit for the mission.
Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh accused the the
Commander-In-Chief of misstating the facts in his rush to take credit
for the kill hours after a Navy SEAL operation took out the 9/11
mastermind four years ago.
In an article for the London Review of Books published
on Sunday evening Hersh claims Obama's address caused 'chaos' in the
intelligence community and forced them to collaborate his story.
The
former New York Times reporter quotes former American and Pakistani
intelligence sources, as well as Navy SEALs, - all of whom are unnamed -
as he claims the White House and CIA repeatedly lied to the public
about nearly every aspect of the bin Laden raid.
The
White House disputed the report this afternoon, saying the piece was
'riddled with inaccuracies' and 'baseless,' as did a former CIA
official, who claimed that 'every sentence...was wrong.' A current CIA
operative called it 'utter nonsense.'
Hersh
defended himself this morning on CNN, particularly his reliance on a
'major U.S. source' for key allegations about what really happened
during on May 2, 2011, in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
He
stood by his reporting and said he 'vetted most and verified' his
source, who is described in the piece as a 'retired senior intelligence
official', and did his own, additional reporting from Pakistan.
Scroll down for video
Pulitzer winning journalist Seymour
Hersh defended himself this morning on CNN, particularly his reliance on
a 'major U.S. source' for key allegations about what really happened
during on May 2, 2011, in Abbottabad, Pakistan. He stood by his
reporting and said he 'vetted most and verified' his sourcing and did
his own, additional reporting from Pakistan
LIAR: Hersh's
report claimed President Barack Obama intentionally misled the public
about the raiid that killed Osama Bin Laden so he could take credit for
the mission
The Situation Room: Obama (second
left), Vice President Joe Biden (left) and the then Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton (second right) watch the raid on the compound unfold
Among the explosive claims that Hersh makes in the piece:
- The Pakistanis had been essentially holding bin Laden captive at the Abbottabad compound for years before raid.
- The CIA learned of bin Laden's location from a Pakistani intelligence official who tipped off American operatives hoping to claim the $25 million bounty on the terror leader - not from interrogation of an al-Qaeda courier.
- Top American officials negotiated with Pakistani officials to let them carry out the operation to kill bin Laden on Pakistani soil.
- There was no vaccination program used to obtain the DNA from bin Laden's compound - it was all made up as part of an elaborate cover-story after the fact.
- The Pakistani intelligence service, ISI, cut power to the neighborhood where bin Laden was hiding on the day of the raid and made sure no Pakistani forces would not interfere with the American choppers flying into sovereign airspace.
- There was no firefight during the SEAL raid - the only shots fired were those that killed bin Laden, whom Hersh described as a 'cowering' and 'unarmed' when he was assassinated.
- Bin Laden was cut off from al Qaeda no longer running the terrorist group at that point.
- There was almost no useful intelligence information found in his compound.
- After he was killed, bin Laden was buried at sea, but instead buried in Afghanistan.
- Obama publicly announced the commando raid and claimed public credit for it, despite agreeing with the Pakistanis to keep the action secret for seven days.
- The U.S. president was to eventually say bin Laden had been killed in a drone strike.
- Obama's announcement badly alienated Pakistani leaders and all but obliterated the military and intelligence ties between the two nations.
Militant organisation: During
his piece, Hersh claimed the threat of Al Qaeda, headed by Bin Laden
(left), was hyped up in the weeks before the attack
In
the piece he cites one anonymous source, a retired senior intelligence
official who was knowledgeable about the initial intelligence about bin
Laden’s presence in Abottabad.'
He
adds that the high-ranking servicemen was also 'privy to many aspects
of the (Navy SEALs)’ training for the raid, and to the various
after-action reports.'
'Obama’s speech was put together in a rush,' Hersh alleges.
'This series of self-serving and inaccurate statements would create chaos in the weeks following.'
The
White House has maintained Pakistani officials were not informed of the
raid, but Hersh believes this is false, as members of the Obama
administration have contradicted the account.
He
quotes his anonymous source as saying: 'The fact that there was an
agreement with the Pakistanis and no contingency analysis of what was to
be disclosed if something went wrong – that wasn’t even discussed.'
According
to Hersh the Abbottabad compound was surrounded by ISI guards who kept
watch over bin Laden and his wives and children around the clock.
'They were under orders to leave as soon as they heard the rotors of the US helicopters,' Hersh claims.
'The town was dark: the electricity supply had been cut off on the orders of the ISI hours before the raid began.'
The
unnamed official also told him, allegedly, that Obama's advisers were
forced to 'make up a new cover story on the fly' after hearing the
speech.
And
he says a Special Operations Command consultant told him bin Laden's
death was 'political theatre designed to burnish Obama’s military
credentials.'
'The
Seals should have expected the political grandstanding. It’s
irresistible to a politician. Bin Laden became a working asset,' the
source added.
Hersh
concludes by claiming that 'high-level lying' and 'bypassing the chain
of command' are standard fare in U.S. counter-terrorism strategy and
those who 'say no' to the consensus are usually phased out.
White House and CIA officials, current
and former, shredded the report on Monday. 'It’s all wrong,' former CIA
Deputy Director Mike Morell, pictured here testifying before Congress
last year, told CBS this morning. 'I started reading the article last
night. I got a third of the way through and I stopped because every
sentence I was reading was wrong.'
White House and CIA officials, current and former, shredded the report on Monday.
'It’s
all wrong,' former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell told CBS this
morning. 'I started reading the article last night. I got a third of the
way through and I stopped because every sentence I was reading was
wrong.
'The
source that Hersh talked to has no idea what he’s talking about,'
Morell said, arguing that Hersh's informant was 'obviously was not close
to what actually happened.'
'The Pakistanis did not know,' he said.
A anonymous CIA official told the Washington Post that the report was 'utter nonsense.'
The
president's top spokesman also disparaged Hersh's account, quoting CNN
National Security Analyst Peter Bergen, who said of the 10,000 word
article, 'As far as I can tell, what’s true isn’t new and what’s new
isn’t true.'
Asked
this afternoon if any part of the public perception about bin Laden's
capture was inaccurate, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said,
'Certainly nothing that I'm aware of.'
'I
can certainly tell you that the Obama White House is not the only one
to observe that the story is riddled with inaccuracies and outright
falsehoods,' he said, pointing to Morell's testimony that every sentence
was wrong.
A
spokesman for the president's National Security Council told reporters
in an email, 'There are too many inaccuracies and baseless assertions in
this piece to fact check each one.'
But he said Hersh's claim that bin Laden was killed in 'anything but a unilateral U.S. mission is patently false.'
Appearing on CNN this morning Hersh said Morell's telling of the Abbottabad assault was a 'Lewis Carroll fairy tale.'
He also said he allowed his source to remain anonymous because its 'very tough for guys still inside to get quoted extensively.'
To
critics of his past reporting, which also relied heavily on secret
sources, Hersh said: 'I would argue that a lot of the stories I wrote
were pretty much on-mark.'
'Nobody's perfect, of course -- everybody's done bad stories,' he added.
Controversial: Pulitzer prize-winning
journalist Seymour Hersh claims the Commander-In-Chief rushed to take
credit for the Navy SEAL operation which killed the head of Al Qaeda
four years ago
Aftermath: Hersh
also claims the details of the raid in Abbottobad, Pakistan, were
exaggerated. Pictured is a piece of a downed helicopter outside bin
Laden's compound
Hersh
also claims the details of the raid itself were exaggerated and the
threat of Al Qaeda was hyped up in the weeks leading up to the
operation.
‘The White House had to give the impression that bin Laden was still operationally important,' the source adds.
'Otherwise,
why kill him? A cover story was created – that there was a network of
couriers coming and going with memory sticks and instructions. All to
show that bin Laden remained important.’
He adds the 'lies, misstatements and betrayals' were always going to create a backlash.
The
source allegedly said: 'We’ve had a four-year lapse in co-operation.
It’s taken that long for the Pakistanis to trust us again in the
military-to-military counterterrorism relationship – while terrorism was
rising all over the world … They felt Obama sold them down the river.
'They’re just now coming back because the threat from Isis, which is now showing up there.'
In 2013, Hersh first Obama's story of the 2011 operation, claiming it was 'one big lie.'
During an interview with The Guardian, he savaged the US media for failing to challenge the president on a number of issues - from NSA spying to drone attacks.
‘It’s pathetic. They are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama],’ he stated.
He has claimed the Obama administration has lied on a number of occasions.
His
1969 expose on the My Lai Massacre earned him the 1970 Pulitzer Prize
for international reporting. He also earned critical acclaim for his
2004 reports on the U.S. military's treatment of Abu Ghraib prisoners.
Then-Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has claimed that a piece Hersh wrote
claiming he sanctioned the misconduct is 'the most hysterical piece of
journalist malpractice I have ever observed.'
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