President Barack Obama has been accused of lying about the details surrounding the assassination of Osama Bin Laden back in May 2011. Seymour Hersh has compiled a lengthy report for London Review Of Books that alleges Bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces who worked in conjunction with Pakistani intelligence agencies. In fact, Seymour Hersh has reported that Bin Laden was being held prisoner inside the Abbottabad compound that he was eventually killed inside for several years.
Seymour Hersh’s 10,000 word report is much different to how President Barack Obama and his administration documented the raid, which resulted in Bin Laden’s death.
Hersh wrote, “The White House still maintains that the mission was an all- American affair, and that the senior generals of Pakistan’s army and Inter- Services Intelligence agency (ISI) were not told of the raid in advance. This is false, as are many other elements of the Obama administration’s account.”
But what were some of the lies that President Barack Obama and his team told? Well, according to Seymour Hersh, rather than not being informed of the US mission to assassinate Osama Bin Laden, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the chief of Pakistan’s army staff, and General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, director general of the ISI, knew of the raid in advance. In fact, they allowed the US Navy Seals who were travelling to Abbottabad to cross into “Pakistani airspace without triggering any alarms.”
Seymour Hersh also wrote, “(B)in Laden had been a prisoner of the ISI at the Abbottabad compound since 2006,” and Hersh insists that the “CIA did not learn of Bin Laden’s whereabouts by tracking his couriers, as the White House has claimed since May 2011" but were instead told of it by a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer in exchange for a $25 million reward from the US.
Seymour Hersh insists that he gathered most of material from a primary source who is a “retired senior intelligence official” with a vast amount of knowledge about Bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad. It’s always been deemed a little strange that Osama Bin Laden was living in Abbottabad because of its strong military presence.
Seymour Hersh did confirm though that the US Navy Seal team that carried out the assassination did so from Barack Obama’s orders, but a variety of details regarding their account are completely false. Obama has always documented that Pakistan’s government and special forces weren’t involved.
It’s also been suggested that this revelation could have serious implications for Hillary Clinton’s White House bid, especially since she was the secretary of state at the time of the raid.