The first eye witness account by one of the US Navy SEALs in the unit that killed Osama bin Laden will be published later this year, less than two months before the US presidential election. The publication, due for the politically charged date of September 11, 2001, is likely to be a sensation. Dutton, an imprint of Penguin, said that “No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account Of The Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden” is written by one of the SEALs who entered the al Qaeda founder’s hideout in May 2011 “and was present at his death.”
The writer, identified by the pseudonym Mark Owen, is said to have left the military and is the veteran of 13 consecutive combat deployments, culminating with the Operation Neptune Spear in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The book is co-written with Kevin Maurer, a US journalist. In the book, Owen says, he wants “to set the record straight about one of the most important missions in US military history. ‘No Easy Day’ is the story of ‘the guys,’ the human toll we pay, and the sacrifices we make to do this dirty job.” The cover of the book, already advertised on Amazon shows the ghostly figure of a soldier holding an assault rifle. The killing of bin Laden, who managed to evade US forces for a decade after ordering the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, is seen by some as Obama’s biggest achievement in office. However, the president has come under fire from some former CIA and special forces members who accuse him of leaking confidential details of missions in order to boost his ratings. Republican challenger Mitt Romney and his supporters have also repeatedly accused Obama of seeking political gain from the military’s exploits. With little information about what Owen’s book will reveal — including whether or not it will include the SEAL’s opinion on his former commander in chief — it was not clear whether the publication would hurt or help the Obama campaign.
