4 met with his foreign policy advisors: Ben Rhodes, interview by author, Washington, DC, August 15, 2011.
5 Obama campaign’s foreign policy critiques: Author interviews with senior administration officials.
6 “If we have actionable intelligence”: Obama’s speech at Woodrow Wilson Center.
7 “I find it amusing”: AFL-CIO Presidential Democratic Forum, Chicago, IL, August 7, 2007, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20180486/ns/msnbc_tv-hardball_with_chris_matthews/t/afl-cio-democratic-presidential-forum-august—pm-et/#.TwXh111AIj8.
8 Clinton’s most famous campaign ad: Ariel Alexovich, “Clinton’s National Security Ad,” New York Times, February 29, 2008, thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/clintons-national-security-ad/.
9 “Dr. Strangelove”: “Transcript: The Republican Candidates Debate,” New York Times, August 5, 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/us/politics/05transcript-debate.html?pagewanted=all.
10 “Will we risk the confused leadership”: “Transcript: John McCain Speech After His Win in the Wisconsin Primary,” C-SPAN, February 19, 2008, www.c-spanvideo.org/appearance/290354897.
11 “John McCain likes to say”: Jonathan Alter, The Promise: President Obama, Year One (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009), p. 2.
12 Obama approved the campaign: Matthew M. Aid, Intel Wars: The Secret History of the Fight Against Terror (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), p. 119.
13 a pair of CIA drone strikes: R. Jeffrey Smith, Candace Rondeaux, and Joby Warrick, “2 U.S. Airstrikes Offer a Concrete Sign of Obama’s Pakistan Policy,” Washington Post, January 24, 2009, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/23/AR2009012304189.html.
14 “extraordinary efforts”: “The Nobel Committee Explains Its Choice,” Time, October 9, 2009, www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1929399,00.html.
15 “surge” of thirty thousand troops: “Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on the Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” White House press release, December 1, 2009, www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-address-nation-way-forward-afghanistan-and-pakistan.
16 forty-five drone strikes … reliable press reports: See Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, “The Year of the Drone,” New America Foundation, February 24, 2010, counterterrorism.newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/policydocs/bergentiedemann2.pdf.
17 “I face the world as it is”: “Obama’s Nobel Remarks [transcript],” New York Times, December 10, 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/world/europe/11prexy.text.html?pagewanted=all.
18 his first intelligence briefings: Bruce Riedel, interview by Tresha Mabile, Washington, DC, July 2011.
19 three-day attack in Mumbai: Somini Sangupta, “Dossier Gives Details of Mumbai Attacks,” New York Times, January 6, 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/world/asia/07india.html.
20 “Most of these threats”: Juan Zarate, interview by author, Washington, DC, 2010.
21 “We need to redouble our efforts”: “Obama on bin Laden: The Full 60 Minutes Interview,” CBS, May 8, 2011, www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-20060530-10391709.html.
22 “Where do you think Osama bin Laden is?”: Bruce Riedel interview.
23 “In order to ensure”: Ken Dilanian, “In Finding Osama bin Laden, CIA Soars from Distress to Success,” Los Angeles Times, May 8, 2011, articles.latimes.com/2011/may/08/nation/la-na-bin-laden-cia-20110508.
24 It became embarrassing to bring nothing new: Author interviews with U.S. counterterrorism officials involved in the hunt for bin Laden.
25 late July of 2009: Warrick, The Triple Agent, p. 117.
26 Balawi was arrested in early 2009: Ibid., pp. 40–41.
27 a short video clip: Ibid., pp. 115–16.
28 “golden source”: Ibid., p. 114.
29 providing medical treatment: Ibid., p. 126.
30 “to conduct martyrdom operations”: John Marzulli, “Najibullah Zazi Pleads Guilty to Plotting NYC Terror Attack, Supporting al Qaeda,” New York Daily News, February 22, 2010.
31 first genuine al-Qaeda recruit: Josh Meyer, “Urgent Probe Underway of Possible al Qaeda–linked Terror Plot,” Los Angeles Times, September 21, 2009, articles.latimes.com/2009/sep/21/nation/na-terror-arrests21.
32 pages of handwritten notes: U.S. v. Najibullah Zazi, Eastern District of New York, 09-CR-663, memorandum of law in support of the government’s motion for a permanent order of detention obtained via INTELWIRE.com.
33 quick actions … “was acquired in Yemen”: “Yemen Can Carry Out Airstrikes Against al Qaeda,” CNN.com, December 30, 2009, www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/12/30/U.S..yemen.strikes/index.html.
34 “We dodged a bullet”: Jake Tapper, Karen Travers, and Huma Khan, “Obama: System Failed in a ‘Potentially Disastrous’ Way,” ABC News, January 5, 2010, abcnews.go.com/print?id=9484260.
35 arranged for the Jordanian doctor to slip over the border: Warrick, The Triple Agent, p. 160.
36 Forward Operating Base Chapman … December 30, 2009: Ibid., p. 162.
37 arranged for a cake to be made: Ibid., p. 143.
38 As he met with the CIA team: Ibid., p. 179.
39 “very personal for”: John Brennan, interview by author, Washington, DC, December 6, 2011.
40 launched an unprecedented eleven: Warrick, The Triple Agent, pp. 189–90.
41 put more Agency officers on the ground: Author interviews with National Security Council officials.
42 “The CIA goes into a completely different mode”: Vali Nasr, interview by author, Washington, DC, May 31, 2011.
43 almost four hundred U.S. officials: Shamila Chaudhary, interview by author, Washington, DC, November 1, 2011.
44 “all bets are off”: Bob Woodward, Obama’s Wars (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010), p. 365.
45 Zardari pushed back: Author interviews with National Security Council officials.
CHAPTER 8: ANATOMY OF A LEAD
1 the Kuwaiti was back in bin Laden’s inner circle: Bob Woodward, “Death of Osama bin Laden: Phone Call Pointed U.S. to Compound—and to ‘the Pacer,’ ” Washington Post, May 6, 2011, www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/death-of-osama-bin-laden-phone-call-pointed-us-to-compound–and-to-the-pacer/2011/05/06/AFnSVaCG_story.html; author interview with U.S. officials.
2 at least an hour’s drive: Author interview with Pakistani intelligence official, July 2011.
3 able to follow him as he drove home: Author interview with senior U.S. intelligence official.
4 phone or Internet service: Mazzetti, Cooper, and Baker, “Behind the Hunt for Bin Laden”; author interview with U.S. intelligence officials.
5 “Tell me about that fortress”: U.S. intelligence officer, interview with author, Washington, DC, December 20, 2011.
6 “interested, but cautious”: History Channel, Targeting Bin Laden, September 6, 2011.
7 “don’t be afraid of making some of them kind of creative”: Author interview with U.S. intelligence official.
8 “You are commanded to come out into the street”: Ibid.
9 bogus vaccination program: Saeed Shah, “CIA Organised Fake Vaccination Drive to Get Bin Laden’s Family DNA,” Guardian, July 11, 2011, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccinations-osama-bin-ladens-dna.
10 “Closing In on Usama bin Ladin’s Courier”: Author interview with U.S. counterterrorism officials involved in the hunt for bin Laden.
11 “Anatomy of a Lead”: Goldman and Apuzzo, “Meet ‘John’: The CIA’s bin Laden Hunter-in-Chief.”
12 “We had a group who weren’t afraid”: Author interviews with U.S. counterterrorism officials involved in the hunt for bin Laden.
13 friends and colleagues: Ibid.
14 alcoholic and a congenital liar: Edward Helmore, “US Relied on ‘Drunken Liar’ to Justify War,” Guardian, April 2, 2005.
15 skeptical of this claim: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “Report on Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Postwar Iraq, together with Additional Views,” February 12, 2004, p. 87, i
ntelligence.senate.gov/prewar.pdf.
16 Matthew … a careful analyst: Author interviews with U.S. counterterrorism officials involved in the hunt for bin Laden.
17 Kuwaiti even still working for al-Qaeda: Ibid.
18 “We put an enormous amount of work”: Ibid.
19 “We kept explaining”: Ibid.
20 “high confidence”: Ibid.
21 religious school outside Abbottabad: Lamb, “Revealed: The SEALs’ Secret Guide.”
22 “pattern of life”: Author interviews with U.S. counterterrorism officials involved in the hunt for bin Laden.
23 “non-alerting”: Author interview with former CIA operations officer posted in Pakistan after the 9/11 attacks.
24 bin Laden’s wives, children, and grandchildren: Author interview with U.S. official.
25 “the pacer”: Ibid.; also see Woodward, “Death of Osama bin Laden.”
26 “collection gaps” … local police on the payroll: Author interviews with U.S. counterterrorism officials involved in the hunt for bin Laden.
27 “We had pulled on a gazillion threads”: Ibid.
28 “Oh, that’s a bummer”: Denis McDonough, interview by author, Washington, DC, December 6, 2011.
29 Brennan … pointed out: Ibid.
30 training police dogs: “Part One of Series of Reports on bin Ladin’s Life in Sudan,” Al Quds Al-Arabi, November 24, 2001.
31 “Seventy percent”: Author interview with U.S. counterterrorism officials involved in the hunt for bin Laden.
CHAPTER 9: THE LAST YEARS OF OSAMA BIN LADEN
1 both in their early thirties: Lamb, “Revealed: The SEALs’ Secret Guide.”
2 rice, lentils, and other groceries: Saeed Shah, “At End, bin Laden Wasn’t Running al-Qaida, Officials Say,” McClatchy Newspapers, June 29, 2011, www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/06/28/116666/at-end-bin-laden-wasnt-running.html.
3 stomach upsets, colds and coughs: Munir Ahmed, “AP Exclusive: Doc Recalls Kids from bin Laden Home,” Associated Press, June 1, 2011.
4 small white Suzuki Jeep and a red van: Author observation of model of bin Laden compound.
5 they worked in the transportation business: Shabbir, a neighbor of bin Laden in Abbottabad, interview by author, Pakistan, July 20, 2011.
6 they didn’t help the poor: Nahal Toosi and Zarar Khan, “Bin Laden’s Neighbors Noticed Unusual Things,” Associated Press, May 4, 2011.
7 father emigrated five decades earlier: Zahid Hussain, “Investigators Track bin Laden Couriers,” Wall Street Journal, June 1, 2011, online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576357601886423360.html; author interview with Pakistani intelligence official, July 2011.
8 they could easily blend in: Michael Isikoff, “How Profile of bin Laden Courier Led CIA to Its Target,” NBC News, May 4, 2011, today.msnbc.msn.com/id/42906157/ns/today-today_news/t/how-profile-bin-laden-courier-led-cia-its-target/.
9 small town of Hasan Abdal: Author interview with Pakistani intelligence official, July 2011.
10 plot carnage on a grand scale: Peter Walker, “Osama bin Laden ‘Closely Involved in al-Qaida Plots,’ ” Guardian, May 6, 2011, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/06/osamabinladen-al-qaida.
11 heavy-handed and undiplomatic: Sebastian Rotella, “New Details in the bin Laden Docs: Portrait of a Fugitive Micro-Manager,” Pro-Publica, May 11, 2011, www.propublica.org/article/bin-laden-documents-portrait-of-a-fugitive-micro-manager.
12 deep in the weeds of personnel decisions: Author interview with U.S. intelligence official.
13 issued instructions to his regional affiliates: Lolita C. Baldor and Kimberly Dozier, “Source: Bin Laden Was Directing al-Qaeda Figures,” Associated Press, May 7, 2011; author interview with Pakistani intelligence official, July 2011.
14 Rahman also traveled to Iran: U.S. Department of the Treasury, “Treasury Targets Key Al-Qa’ida Funding and Support Network Using Iran as a Critical Transit Point,” July 28, 2011, www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/tg1261.aspx; also see Matt Apuzzo, “Atiyah Abd al-Rahman Dead: Al Qaeda Second in Command Killed in Pakistan,” Associated Press, August 28, 2011, www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/27/atiyah-abd-al-rahman-al-qaeda-dead_n_939009.html.
15 Bin Laden reminded the leaders: Author interview with Pakistani official, July 2011.
16 Rahman wrote a seven-page letter: Atiyah abd al-Rahman, “Note to Zarqawi,” November 12, 2005, available at www.ctc.usma.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/CTC-AtiyahLetter.pdf; on Abdul al-Rahman’s role in communicating with al-Qaeda in Iraq, see Brian Fishman, “Redefining the Islamic State: The Fall and Rise of Al-Qaeda in Iraq,” New America Foundation, August 18, 2011, newamerica.net/publications/policy/redefining_the_islamic_state.
17 harmed the al-Qaeda brand: Author interview with Pakistani official, July 2011.
18 scolding them for “fanaticism”: Fawaz Gerges, The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 120.
19 America was still their main enemy: Ken Dilanian and Brian Bennett, “Osama bin Laden’s Surrender Wasn’t a Likely Outcome in Raid, Officials Say,” Los Angeles Times, May 3, 2011, articles.latimes.com/2011/may/03/world/la-fg-bin-laden-us-20110504/2.
20 not a sufficiently important target: Rotella, “New Details in the bin Laden Docs”; Siobhan Gorman, “Petraeus Named in bin Laden Documents,” Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2011, online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304231204576404222056912648.html.
21 al-Qaeda simply didn’t have the resources: Michael Leiter, interview by author, Washington, DC, August 29, 2011.
22 attack the United States itself: It should be noted that while bin Laden continued to emphasize large-scale attacks in the United States, he also supported the shift made by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula toward smaller attacks against American targets. See Kimberly Dozier, “Bin Laden Trove of Documents Sharpen US Aim,” Associated Press, June 8, 2011, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43331634/ns/us_news-security/t/bin-laden-trove-documents-sharpen-us-aim/.
23 how many thousands of dead Americans: Pierre Thomas and Martha Raddatz, “Osama bin Laden Operational Journal Among Evidence from SEAL Raid,” ABC News, May 11, 2011, abcnews.go.com/Blotter/osama-bin-laden-diary-evidence-seal-raid/story?id=13581186.
24 He mused about attacking trains: Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, “Data Show Bin Laden Plots; C.I.A. Hid Near Raided Houses,” New York Times, May 5, 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/world/asia/06intel.html.
25 disaffected African Americans and Latinos: Greg Miller and Karen DeYoung, “Bin Laden’s Preoccupation with U.S. Said to Be Source of Friction with Followers,” Washington Post, May 11, 2011.
26 Bryant Neal Vinas: For more on Vinas, see Michael Powell, “U.S. Recruit Reveals How Qaeda Trains Foreigners,” New York Times, July 23, 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/nyregion/24terror.html?pagewanted=all.
27 tenth anniversary of 9/11: Siobhan Gorman, “Bin Laden Plotted New Attack,” Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2011, online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304521304576446213098582284.html.
28 Christmas: Dozier, “Bin Laden Trove of Documents Sharpen U.S. Aim.”
29 oil tankers … wider strategy: Damien Pearse, “Al-Qaida Hoped to Blow Up Oil Tankers, Bin Laden Documents Reveal,” Guardian, May 20, 2011, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/20/al-qaida-oil-tankers-bin-laden.
30 in touch with a group of Moroccan militants: “Top Terrorist Had Ties to Düsseldorf Cell,” Der Spiegel, May 6, 2011, www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,761101,00.html.
31 in the fall of 2010: Author interviews with U.S. national security officials, December 2010.
32 Monotheism and Jihad Group: Matt Apuzzo, “Osama Wanted New Name for al-Qaida to Repair Image,” Associated Press, June 24, 2011, www.salon.com/2011/06/24/us_al_qaida_new_name/. Monotheism and Jihad was, somewhat ironically, the name of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s terrorist group before it became al-Qaeda in Iraq. There was an earlier al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula that was repressed by Saudi authorities; the new iteration of the group w
as announced in 2009, when al-Qaeda in the Southern Arabian Peninsula merged with its Saudi counterpart.
33 did not reflect al-Qaeda’s “values”: Rotella, “New Details in the bin Laden Docs.”
34 didn’t know Awlaki: Author interview with senior U.S. intelligence official.
35 Bin Laden also offered strategic advice: Greg Miller, “Bin Laden Document Trove Reveals Strain on al-Qaeda,” Washington Post, July 1, 2011, www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/bin-laden-document-trove-reveals-strain-on-al-qaeda/2011/07/01/AGdj0GuH_story.html.
36 half a dozen other key lieutenants: Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, “Washington’s Phantom War: The Effects of the U.S. Drone Program in Pakistan,” Foreign Affairs (July/August 2011), www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67939/peter-bergen-and-katherine-tiedemann/washingtons-phantom-war.
37 “getting hammered”: Author interview with senior U.S. intelligence official.
38 counterintelligence shop … particular worry: Author interviews with Pakistani intelligence officials, July 2011; Greg Miller, “Bin Laden Document Trove.”
39 negotiate a grand alliance: Jason Burke, “Osama bin Laden Tried to Establish ‘Grand Coalition’ of Militant Groups,” Guardian, May 30, 2011, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/30/osama-bin-laden-militant-alliance.
40 considered brokering some sort of deal: Mark Mazzetti, “Signs That Bin Laden Weighed Seeking Pakistani Protection,” New York Times, May 26, 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/world/middleeast/27binladen.html.
41 in 2003 tried to assassinate Pakistan’s president: Salman Masood, “Pakistan Leader Escapes Attempt at Assassination,” New York Times, December 26, 2003, www.nytimes.com/2003/12/26/world/pakistani-leader-escapes-attempt-at-assassination.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm.
42 his battle was fought in the media: “Letter to Mullah Mohammed Omar from bin Laden,” undated, AFGP-2002-600321, available at www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/letter-to-mullah-mohammed-omar-from-bin-laden-english-translation.
43 Kyoto agreement on global warming: Osama bin Laden, “The Wills of the Heroes of the Raids on New York and Washington,” videotape released September 11, 2011, transcript available at abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/transcript2.pdf.
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