United States President Barack Obama lied to Americans about the role of Pakistan special forces in the raid which killed Osama Bin Laden so he could take credit for the mission, an expose published has claimed.
Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has accused the Commander-In-Chief of rushing to receive plaudits just hours after the Navy SEAL operation which killed the head of Al Qaeda and 9/11 mastermind four years ago.
The report, a lengthy article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, widely contradicts multiple elements of the original account of the May 2011 raid by US forces provided by the Obama administration and other federal government figures.
The former New York Times reporter quotes former American and Pakistani intelligence sources, as well as Navy SEALs as he claims that the White House and CIA repeatedly lied to the public about nearly every aspect of the bin Laden raid.
While Obama touted bin Laden’s capture in a Pakistani compound as an “all-American affair,” Hersh alleges US officials got assistance from upper-level Pakistani officials. Moreover, bin Laden wasn’t “hiding” in Pakistan when Navy Seals found him like the US government claimed, according to Hersh.
Rather, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence was holding bin Laden hostage, and a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer tipped the US off in exchange for $25 million, Hersh writes in his article, which has attracted wide attention in just a few hours.
Among the explosive claims that Hersh makes in the piece:
1) The Pakistanis had been essentially holding bin Laden captive at the Abbottabad compound for years
2) The CIA learned of bin Laden’s location from a Pakistani intelligence official who tipped off American operatives hoping to claim the $25million bounty on the terror leader -- not from interrogation of an Al Qaeda courier
3) Top American officials negotiated with Pakistani officials to let them carry out the operation to kill bin Laden on Pakistani soil
4) There was no vaccination program used to collect DNA from bin Laden’s compound -- it was all made up as part of an elaborate cover-story after the fact.
5) 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
6) There was no firefight during the SEAL raid -- the only shots fired were those that killed bin Laden
7) Bin Laden was cut off from Al Qaeda at the time of his killing and was not running the terrorist group
8) There was almost no useful intelligence information found his compound
9) After he was killed, bin Laden was not buried at sea, but instead buried in Afghanistan
10) 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 and eventually say bin Laden had been killed in a drone strike
