The Exile

by Adrian Levy

  Marie Harf’s boss, George Little, the CIA’s director of public affairs, wrote to Boal on July 20: “I can’t tell you how excited we all are (at DOD and CIA) about the project … PS—I want you to know how good I’ve been not mentioning the premiere tickets.:).”132

  Soon the movie was retitled Zero Dark Thirty, military-speak for the exact time of night that the real mission had started. Boal and his team were given access to classified material and were walked around the original Styrofoam-and-clay model of AC1. They also used CIA staff as fact-checkers. Asked to examine a floor plan for the compound against official records, Harf was more than happy to help: “Looks legit to us.”133

  Boal needed more help with the third-floor layout as open-source material was missing crucial details. “We will be building a full scale replica of the house,” he explained. “Including the inhabitants of the animal pen!”134

  Harf responded minutes later: “Ha! Of course I don’t mind! I’ll work on that tomorrow.”135

  The Hollywood team also made liberal use of classified CIA and Pentagon interrogation reports on which to base one of their central characters—“Ammar”—an Al Qaeda suspect (a composite of real-life detainees Mohammed al-Qahtani and Hassan Ghul) who was tortured in a cavernous, windowless hangar (the Salt Pit), waterboarded (as was Khalid Shaikh Mohammad), and kept in a coffin-like wooden box (like Abu Zubaydah). After “Ammar” was subjected to these techniques, he revealed critical details of Osama’s courier—a clear narrative that suggested the CIA’s Enhanced Interrogation Techniques had led investigators directly to the compound, when in reality the most apposite, precious information about the Kuwaiti brothers and Abbottabad had been given voluntarily, long before the torture had started. The rest had been deduced by sparky analysts like Gina Bennett, whose character would be played in the film by Jessica Chastain, or had come down a top secret pipeline from Tehran to Washington, D.C., thanks in part to the trail left by Khairiah bin Laden, who had led Iranian intelligence officials to Abbottabad. In the real story, torture had only occluded witnesses, leading the agency into a dark cul-de-sac from which it clearly hoped that Bigelow would now pull it.

  March 2012, Washington, D.C.

  While Zero Dark Thirty was being filmed on location in India and Jordan in January 2012, John Kiriakou—a former CIA officer who had participated in the initial twenty-four-hour detention of Abu Zubaydah in a Pakistani military hospital in 2002 and who was the first former U.S. government official to reveal the CIA’s use of waterboarding during a December 2007 television interview—was charged with repeatedly disclosing classified information to journalists and sentenced to thirty months in prison.136 In his initial media interview, Kiriakou had condoned such practices, saying they had disrupted “maybe dozens of attacks” and saved American lives. Later, he spoke out against waterboarding and other enhanced techniques, becoming a terrorism consultant for U.S. news channels.

  David Petraeus, who had recently taken over as CIA director, was one of many senior public figures who pressed forward to condemn Kiriakou. “Oaths do matter, and there are indeed consequences for those who believe they are above the laws,” he said. Several months later, Petraeus would be forced to resign after his affair with his biographer became public along with evidence that he had passed classified secrets to her and committed adultery—which remains an offense triable by court martial.

  On the first anniversary of the Abbottabad raid and with President Obama’s reelection campaign in full swing, seventeen letters from Osama bin Laden’s compound were cherry-picked for release via the Combating Terrorism Center based at West Point. They were published under the banner Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Ladin Sidelined? with an accompanying narrative suggesting a sharp contrast to previous Pentagon briefings in which Osama had been projected as “al-Qaeda’s tactical director.”137 It was the first time anyone outside the CIA’s document-sifting team based at the National Media Exploitation Center in McLean, Virginia, had seen anything of the million-plus documents recovered from ten hard drives, one hundred thumb drives and data cards, as well as printed material. Most of the published letters appeared to show a man at the end of his useful life.

  To reinforce the message that Osama had been a peripheral figure in his twilight days, David Ignatius of the Washington Post was given advance sight of the Abbottabad letters and wrote an article, “Osama bin Laden, a Lion in Winter,” revealing the Al Qaeda leader’s frustration at his inability to control his jihadist “brothers” acting throughout the region.138

  From then until the president’s reelection in November 2012, countless official briefings presented bin Laden as having spent his last years pacing in his courtyard, watching television, and dictating messages to people who no longer listened. A giant of a man had become a frustrated introvert who frittered away his time on domestic dramas, watched porn, dyed his hair and beard back to black, and recorded faltering video statements that were never aired. According to the carefully chosen declassified letters, he had lost his momentum, and he had lost Al Qaeda, too. He had spent the days before his death in bitter reflection.

  One of the many high-ranking officials who demanded a fuller picture of what the Abbottabad documents really revealed was Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst with three decades’ experience who had served as a special assistant to President Clinton at the time of the 1998 U.S. embassy attacks and who President Obama had appointed in 2009 to overhaul U.S. policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Riedel was amazed at the material that he saw and shocked by how little was being done to analyze this unique intelligence material. “While I was sensitive to the needs of live operations,” he recalled, “it became clear to me that they wanted to edit the story according to the political objectives of the West Wing.”139

  The message that Al Qaeda was finished and that the United States had won the war against Islamist terrorist began to unravel after Zero Dark Thirty came out in December 2012, with an opening credit proclaiming that it was “based on firsthand accounts.” Almost immediately, it was lambasted for being “a false advertisement for waterboarding” and other banned torture techniques.140 Senator Dianne Feinstein, who had just submitted a six-thousand-page report on CIA torture to the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote to Sony Pictures chairman and CEO Michael Lynton, calling the film “grossly inaccurate and misleading” and asking for details of what help the CIA had given to the film’s director and screenwriter. A Freedom of Information Act request forced the U.S. government to further open up, and the newly reelected President Obama was also accused of having leaked classified information for political gain during the first exhilarating days after Osama’s death, when everything, it seemed, had been up for grabs: the identification of the raid team as SEAL Team Six, how they had traveled to Abbottabad, what weapons and equipment they had used, how they had taken down the building and with what tactics, even down to the name of the attack dog—a Belgian Malinois called Cairo.141

  Watching the Hollywood-CIA tryst, the president’s reelection campaigning, Kiriakou’s fall from grace, and the overt reframing of Osama, SEALs also began to break their codes of silence. Writing under the pseudonym Mark Owen, Matthew Bissonnette published a book—No Easy Day—in which he described himself as the second man into Osama’s bedroom, making no reference to Robert O’Neill or his rival’s claims to have fired the fatal shot.142

  The first that the Pentagon knew of Bissonnette’s book was when George Little, now Leon Panetta’s chief spokesman, spotted the press release. The author had failed to submit his manuscript for official editing and was “in material breach of his secrecy agreements with the United States government,” Little warned, without reference to how he had facilitated Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal’s access to classified CIA material.

  Bissonnette was on the rack. “We believe that sensitive and classified information is in the book,” said Little.

  The former SEAL reacted furiously, saying that he had felt compelled to speak after watching inaccurate
stories about the raid, many of them spun by government officials without the clearance to know the truth. He complained about the “inconsistencies” regarding who was and was not allowed to talk. “Everybody and their brother was talking about this,” he said in a later television interview. “How can you be holding it against me?”143

  Bissonnette and six other SEALs who had participated in the raid had their salaries docked as punishment for working as paid consultants for a video game entitled Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

  February 2013

  Former SEAL Robert O’Neill was the next to break cover, telling Esquire magazine that he was speaking out because so many before him had benefited from his story and yet he faced an uncertain future. “No pension, no healthcare for his wife and kids, no protection for himself or his family,” wrote interviewer Phil Bronstein, who identified O’Neill not by name but as “the Shooter.” The best offer of future employment and protection from any Al Qaeda retaliation that SEAL command had come up with so far was a witness-protection-like scheme in which O’Neill could drive a beer truck in Milwaukee. However, he would never be able to have contact with his family or friends again.

  O’Neill decided to go it alone, recasting himself as a motivational speaker, traveling the country giving paid speeches on the unspoken understanding that he was the man who had killed Osama. He would soon become embroiled in a public row with Bissonnette as they clashed over the exact circumstances of Osama’s killing. Bissonnette had said it did not matter who had pulled the trigger as it was “not about who that one person was—it was about the team.”144 O’Neill disagreed and finally went public in a Fox News interview in November 2014, sticking to his story that he had fired the fatal shot.

  “Two different people telling two different stories for two different reasons,” responded Bissonnette in an interview to promote his second book, No Hero, published in November 2014. “Whatever he says, he says. I don’t want to touch that.”

  Both men received stinging letters from Naval Special Warfare Command: “We do not abide willful or selfish disregard for our core values in return for public notoriety and financial gain,” wrote Rear Admiral Brian Losey and Master Chief Michael Magaraci. “A critical [tenet] of our Ethos is ‘I do not advertise the nature of my work, nor seek recognition for my actions.’ ”145 In 2016, Bissonnette agreed to pay back to the federal government at least $6.8 million in book royalties and other publication profits under a deal to avoid prosecution for not getting prepublication approval for No Easy Day.146 He was also ordered to hand over a photograph he had taken of Osama bin Laden’s body and kept on his hard drive.147

  To O’Neill, Bissonnette, and others who had played integral roles in America’s war on terror, it appeared that their paymasters were happy to condone misinformation for political gain at the same time as pursuing a policy to shut down those who wished to tell another version of the story.

  One rule to bind them all. But another for the White House. In early 2017, O’Neill revealed that he, too, had written a book that would include his account of the killing of Osama bin Laden. This one had been approved by the U.S. military and was entitled The Operator.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “It is going to be worse when my father dies. The world is going to be very, very nasty … it will be a disaster.”

  —OMAR BIN LADEN, SPEAKING IN 2010

  May 2011, Tourist Complex, Quds Force Training Facility, Tehran, Iran

  Mahfouz the Mauritanian and Saif al-Adel had stayed up through the night to watch rolling reports on Osama’s killing. After so much uplifting news about the Arab Spring, his death winded them. “Eventually, I had to turn off the TV,” Mahfouz said. “We became too angry.”

  While his wife comforted Osama’s daughter Fatima, the Mauritanian reflected on the man who had once been his friend. “As a man of prayer, my neighbor, and a man of spiritual knowledge, I loved him,” he recalled.1 He regretted the harsh words that had marred their last meeting in July 2001. He also worried for himself. Like everyone else in the compound, he was desperate to get back out into the jihad arena and shape Al Qaeda’s now uncertain future; but if he did, would the Americans come for him, too?2

  He fretted over the incriminating material the CIA might recover from Abbottabad: evidence of his failed attempt to relocate Osama’s fortune from Sudan in 1997, the counterfeiting operation he had subsequently helped Dr. al-Zawahiri set up, and his undeclared assistance in the East Africa bombings. Whether he had simply run the telephone exchange for the operation or marshaled the funding for it, he had spoken of it to no one. But if he ever left the protective bubble of Iran he would have to confront it.

  He wondered if he would end up in Guantánamo like his old friend and brother-in-law, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who had sworn allegiance to Al Qaeda and joined the jihad with his encouragement. Later, Slahi had left the outfit, only to be arrested weeks after 9/11, accused of involvement in an unsuccessful plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport in 1999. He had been rendered to Jordan, then taken to Bagram, and eventually moved to Guantánamo, where he was held in extreme isolation, deprived of sleep, and in his waking hours was physically, psychologically, and sexually humiliated.3 In one incident, he was taken out into the Gulf of Mexico and subjected to a mock execution.

  The Tourist Complex became a place of building paranoia. The women suffered particularly, barely able to believe that Osama, Khalid, Saad, and Khadija bin Laden all were dead. Khairiah, Amal, Seham, and their children were still missing as far as they knew—with many of those still in Iran convinced that Khairiah, wittingly or not, had led the Americans to Abbottabad. Finally there was Hamzah, about whom no one had heard anything. The only lucky ones were Osama’s sons Othman and Mohammed, who, together with their families, had quietly flown out of Pakistan on commercial flights in the chaotic few days after the killing of their father and now shared a compound with Zaina and Omar bin Laden in Doha, where they had been reunited with their mother, Najwa, and younger siblings.

  To cheer up the children who remained in Tehran, their mothers allowed them to bring their pet rabbits into their apartments, dressing them up in necklaces, tinsel, and watches.4 “As the number of prisoners reduced, the rabbits took over,” recalled the Mauritanian ruefully.

  Fatima bin Laden, who had been left bereft by the deaths, especially her “twin” Khadija, relentlessly watched the TV for updates about those still trapped in Pakistan, neglecting her small daughter, Najwa, who ran around dressed in a romper decorated with hearts.5

  Fatima’s husband, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, once Osama’s accidental spokesman, was no comfort as he had fallen into a deep, self-absorbed depression, certain that he too would be given the Slahi treatment sooner or later. He was also back to obsessing about his first wife and seven children.6

  When photographs from Abbottabad—including a gruesome shot of Khalid bin Laden lying dead in a pool of blood—were splashed all over the news, everyone crashed again.

  Another disturbing image depicted three of Khadija’s four orphaned children—Abdallah, Osama, and Fatima, the twin who had survived her mother’s death, holed up in an ISI safe house. Amal’s brother Zakariya had managed to sneak the photograph on his phone. They stood beside Amal’s youngest three—Ibrahim, Zainab, and Hussein—six children with blank faces whose lives had taken another irrevocable turn into the unknown.7

  To break the funk that had settled over the compound, Quds Force commander General Qassem Suleimani ordered his deputies to take the Al Qaeda women and children on outings, arranging visits to the zoo, a riding stable, and even an amusement park on the top floor of an upmarket Tehran mall.

  While they were away, the Mauritanian, Saif al-Adel, and other members of the Al Qaeda shura debated in the majlis.8 The global jihad was morphing. All of them could see it from Al Jazeera and Press TV. The martyrdom of Osama should be seen not as a catastrophic setback but as a springboard, said Saif. Al Qaeda could use the anger to galvanize support. When Osama was ali
ve they had all referred to him as the “Reviving Sheikh,” reinvigorating the idea of jihad among the worldwide ummah.9 By constantly reminding Muslims of “the sinful crime committed in Abbottabad by the Crusader Americans,” he could still be the Reviving Sheikh. They came up with a campaign: “We Are All Osama.”10

  With regard to mounting fresh attacks, Saif argued, they had the means to do this right in front of them. We, he said, taking in his fellow captives, are best placed to utilize this strategic tool. Between them, they had enough battlefield experience to open up a new front in another country and guide those already started. Al Qaeda’s future wars would not be revenge for “Osama the person” but revenge for “all those who defended Islam, its sanctities and honor.”

  General Suleimani had made it clear on more than one occasion that Iran was ready to help if it, too, benefited. The question was where should they regroup now that Pakistan was a no-go area? They had to assume that every telephone number, safe house, courier, and smuggling route there was compromised given that, since Osama’s death, there had been no letup in drone strikes.

  Eight days after a video had been posted on jihadi websites officially proclaiming Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri as Osama’s successor and Atiyah as his Number Two, the latter had been killed in a drone strike in North Waziristan along with his entire family.11 They had been traveling in a car along the same death-run between Mir Ali and Miram Shah where so many others had previously been killed, targeted just as they passed the village of Naurak. Atiyah’s fate had been sealed when the CIA discovered clues as to his location in the letters recovered from Abbottabad.

  Another reason to leave Iran was that the Iranian government was coming under increased U.S. pressure to act against the Al Qaeda presence there. In July 2011, the U.S. Treasury Department accused Tehran of supporting a network that “serves as the core pipeline through which al-Qa’ida moves money, facilitators and operatives” from the Middle East to its bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan.12 Since the Iranians were allowing their territory to be used by this network, “I think it stands to reason that Iran is getting something out of this as well,” said a senior U.S. official, naming six newly sanctioned individuals including the linchpin, Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil—aka Yasin al-Suri.13 Two of his main funders were based in Qatar, one in Iraq, and another in Kuwait.14