While the whole world knows about the U.S. Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May, many of the details of the mission have been shrouded in operational secrecy--until now.In an astonishingly detailed reconstruction published today by the New Yorker, reporter Nicholas Schmidle goes deep inside the planning and execution for the May 1 raid. The scope of specificity and suspense in Schmidle's tick-tock is a powerful read, beyond reconstruction here. (As just a sampler, see these few lines: "…Nine years, seven months, and twenty days after September 11th, an American was a trigger pull from ending bin Laden's life. The first round, a 5.56-mm. bullet, struck bin Laden in the chest. As he fell backward, the SEAL fired a second round into his head, just above his left eye. On his radio, he reported, 'For God and country—Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo.' After a pause, he added, 'Geronimo E.K.I.A.'—'enemy killed in action.'"…)
For all we already knew about the raid--the helicopter that crashed during the operation, for instance--plenty of details in the piece stand out as particularly compelling or new public revelations. ones that the public had not known before, from the code names for bin Laden to the fact that President Obama may not know which member of the special operations team actually fired the fatal bullet.
To wit, five things we learned from the New Yorker reconstruction of the raid:
1) Who actually conducted the raid that killed bin Laden:
According to Schmidle, there were 25 Navy SEALS aboard the two MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters that raided bin Laden's Abbottabad compound. The SEALS were from Team Six, "which is officially known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU," he writes.
They were also accompanied by a Pakistani-American translator (to whom Schmidle gives the pseudonym 'Ahmed'), and a Belgian Malinois dog named Cairo. "Outside the compound's walls, Ahmed, the translator, patrolled the dirt road in front of bin Laden's house, as if he were a plainclothes Pakistani police officer. He looked the part, wearing a shalwar kameez atop a flak jacket. He, the dog Cairo, and four SEALs were responsible for closing off the perimeter of the house while James and six other SEALs—the contingent that was supposed to have dropped onto the roof—moved inside."
2) What was the special operation command's target code name for bin Laden:
Crankshaft.
The Abbottabad raid "represented the team's first serious attempt since late 2001 at killing 'Crankshaft'—the target name that the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, had given bin Laden," Schmidle reports.
It was previously reported that "Geronimo" was the code name for bin Laden. But Schmidle adds new details: "Before the mission commenced, the SEALs had created a checklist of code words that had a Native American theme. Each code word represented a different stage of the mission: leaving Jalalabad, entering Pakistan, approaching the compound, and so on. 'Geronimo' was to signify that bin Laden had been found."
3) Who actually pulled the trigger that killed bin Laden?
According to Schmidle, President Obama may himself not know.
On May 6th, "President Obama travelled to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where the 160th is based, to meet the DEVGRU unit and the pilots who pulled off the raid," Schmidle writes.
Using a 3-D model of bin Laden's compound, the SEALs reconstructed the operation for the president and presented him with an American flag that had been on the mission, that they had signed and which said: "From the Joint Task Force Operation Neptune's Spear, 01 May 2011: 'For God and country. Geronimo,'" Schmidle reports.
"Before the President returned to Washington, he posed for photographs with each team member and spoke with many of them, but he left one thing unsaid," Schmidle wrote: "He never asked who fired the kill shot, and the SEALs never volunteered to tell him.
4) How many times had the DEVGRU team previously conducted stealth special operations raids inside Pakistan?
According to Schmidle, as many as a dozen times.
"The Abbottabad raid was not DEVGRU's maiden venture into Pakistan, either," he writes. "The team had surreptitiously entered the country on ten to twelve previous occasions, according to a special-operations officer who is deeply familiar with the bin Laden raid. Most of those missions were forays into North and South Waziristan, where many military and intelligence analysts had thought that bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders were hiding."
Indeed, the raid that killed bin Laden itself was described as basically so ordinary by the special operations team's standards, Schmidle recounts, that a Defense Department officer described the nighttime raid to Schmidle as "mowing the lawn":
"After a few minutes, the twelve SEALs inside helo one recovered their bearings and calmly relayed on the radio that they were proceeding with the raid," Schmidle reports. "They had conducted so many operations over the past nine years that few things caught them off guard. .... This was one of almost two thousand missions that have been conducted over the last couple of years, night after night.' He likened the routine of evening raids to 'mowing the lawn.' On the night of May 1st alone, special-operations forces based in Afghanistan conducted twelve other missions; according to the official, those operations captured or killed between fifteen and twenty targets. 'Most of the missions take off and go left,' he said. 'This one took off and went right.'"
5) Did Cairo get to meet Obama?
Yes. After the Navy SEAL team leader 'James' mentioned the dog's role in the raid, Obama interrupted, Schmidle recounts:
"There was a dog?" ... James nodded and said that Cairo was in an adjoining room, muzzled, at the request of the Secret Service.
"I want to meet that dog," Obama said.
"If you want to meet the dog, Mr. President, I advise you to bring treats," James joked. Obama went over to pet Cairo, but the dog's muzzle was left on.
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