Still haunted by OBL

Seymour Hersh may be a big name in investigative journalism but his recent story on Osama bin Laden (OBL) hunt has raised many questions; in fact many loopholes in the story can even be pointed out by a layman. It is centred around a contention that both the US and Pakistan senior army and intelligence officials were fully conversant on the hunt and cooperated to an unprecedented level during the Operation Neptune Spear. Breaking from the tradition of his great stories from the past such as My Lai massacre (1969) and Abu Ghraib prison abuse (2004), of quoting undeniable reference sources and documents, OBL story is mainly based on the narrative of an unnamed retired American intelligence official. Apparently Hersh himself was so much convinced of his source’s narrative that he overlooked the obvious ambiguities in the story.

Let’s start with the thrilling disclosure that the Pakistani army brass facilitated the attack on OBL compound by shutting down the radar system on the Western border (for Americans to flying unhindered), removing the guards from the compound, switching off power to the town to have a blackout in the compound vicinity, an ISI operative guiding the US Navy SEALs inside the compound and many other breathtaking details. Question is, if ISI had agreed to let Americans take out OBL, then why all this drama on the night of May 02? Why was OBL (alive or dead) not just handed over to the Americans quite discreetly without such a firefight and bloodshed that night? Why would ISI have invited humiliation across the globe on its incompetence to hunt OBL hiding in its backyard?

Hersh says that OBL was in fact a prisoner or hostage (for leverage with Americans and Al-Qaeda) of ISI for the last five years. A prisoner living in a compound with civil population around him? Why not in a safe house in a far more guarded cantonment? As per Hersh no fire was shot except when OBL was fired upon but the compound walls (though now demolished away) bore the signs of intense exchange of fire and dead bodies of several people (not of OBL family) in the compound tell some other story. Hersh claims that one Dr Amir Aziz, who earlier treated OBL in 1990s, was living nearby the compound. Amir arranged the OBL’s DNA samples for the Americans to verify the target. As per Hersh, Aziz did this for a cut in $25M reward. But Dr Aziz who is still living in Pakistan (not moved to the US) denies of ever living in Abbottabad. As per Hersh, Dr Shakil Afridi is a scapegoat to save Dr Aziz but why? Hersh himself is not clear.

Hersh story is full of many other contradictions; no one knows why he broke this apparently concocted story. Perhaps it’s being done on someone’s behest and is a coded message from one agency to his counterpart in Pakistan. But such claims and counter-claims will keep on breaking the TV screens as no one in responsible position in Pakistan or US is ready to tell the truth. Pakistan established an Abbottabad Enquiry Commission in 2011 to look into the Americans’ raid but its report was not made public. As commission’s mandate didn’t include the million dollar question: How come OBL was living undetected for that long in a garrison town without any track? Therefore, even if this report is ever made public, it’s of no use to comprehend the intelligence failures. One can only wish that truth will be revealed one day, but that would be too late to learn any lesson. Till that time, let’s enjoy spicy stories from both sides.

MASOOD KHAN

Jubail, Saudi Arabia