CIA Chief Breaks Silence: U.S. Ruled Out Involving Pakistan in bin Laden Raid Early On

[tekisui]

Source: TIME

In his first interview since commanding the mission to kill Osama bin Laden, CIA Chief Leon Panetta tells TIME that U.S. officials feared that Pakistan could have undermined the operation by leaking word to its targets. Long before Panetta ordered General William McRaven, the head of the Joint Special Forces Command, to undertake the mission at 1:22 p.m. on Friday, the CIA had been gaming out how to structure the raid. Months prior, the U.S. had considered expanding the assault to include coordination with other countries, most notably Pakistan. But the CIA ruled out participating with its nominal South Asian ally early on because “it was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardize the mission: They might alert the targets,” Panetta says.

The U.S. also considered running a high-altitude bombing raid from B-2 bombers or launching a “direct shot” with cruise missiles, but ruled those options out because of the possibility of “too much collateral,” Panetta says. The direct shot option was still on the table as late as last Thursday as the CIA and then the White House grappled with how much risk to take on the mission. Waiting for more intelligence also remained a possibility.

On Tuesday, Panetta assembled a group of 15 aides to assess the credibility of the intelligence they had collected on the compound in Abbottabad where they believed bin Laden was hiding. They had significant “circumstantial evidence” Bin Laden was living there, Panetta says — the residents burned their trash and had extraordinary security measures — but American satellites had not been able to photograph bin Laden or any members of his family. The Tuesday meeting included team leaders from the CIA’s counter-terrorism center, the special activities division (which runs covert operations for the agency) and officials from the office of south Asian analysis.

Panetta wanted to get their opinions on the potential bin Laden mission and he quickly found there was not unanimity among his team. Some of the aides had been involved in the Carter administration’s effort to go after hostages held by the Iranians 30 years ago; others had been involved in the ill-fated “Black Hawk Down” raid against Somali warlords in 1993. “What if you go down and you’re in a fire fight and the Pakistanis show up and start firing?” Panetta says some worried. “How do you fight your way out?”

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/03/cia-chief-breaks-silence-u-s-ruled-out-involving-pakistan-in-bin-laden-raid-early-on/#ixzz1LIt6WRdN

[Poll_Blind]

1. Maybe I'm missing something about world politics but I'm amazed they are so OPEN about...

...how little they trust Pakistan/ISI.

Of course they're absolutely correct not to trust Pakistan but amazing how comfortable Panetta is with stating it.

PB

[tekisui]

2. The US/CIA and Pak/ISI have been in a downward spiral

over the past year. Becoming increasingly open in their disagreements. Also, the recent wikileaks release showed that the US considered the ISI and elements of the Pakistani government to be terrorists or at least supporters.

What is interesting is how the US was able to get in without the permission or knowledge of the Pakistani government.

[Poll_Blind]

3. Well, did you hear that Pakistan scrambled jets to attack/intercept whomever was...

...flying those helicopters? I mean, that's really keeping them in the dark. To the point that, theoretically, our special forces team could have been killed after a successful raid, by Pakistani forces.

Yeesh.

PB

[tekisui]

4. Wow. No, hadn't heard that yet.

[Poll_Blind]

5. You can search for 'pakistan scrambled jets' (no quotes) in Google News or...

...Here's a sample article.:

WASHINGTON: US President Obama and his national security team spent hairy moments in the White House Situation Room on Sunday worrying among other things that Pakistan would mistake the Osama-specific American commando raid on Abbottabad for an Indian attack.

In fact, a top US official disclosed in a briefing on Monday that the Pakistanis even scrambled their jets when they realized something was afoot in Abbottabad, but the US commandos finished their operation in 40 minutes and were out of there before the Pakistanis acted.

''The Pakistanis were reacting to an incident that they knew was taking place in Abbottabad. Therefore, they were scrambling some of their assets,'' US counterterrorism czar John Brennan revealed while providing some operational details of the mission. It was not clear if the ''assets'' Brennan referred to included just fighter jets or other options ranging from anti-aircraft fire to missiles.

Brennan disclosed that the US was ''concerned that if the Pakistanis decided to scramble jets or whatever else... They had no idea about who might have been in there, whether it be US or somebody else,'' in what was an implicit reference to India. ''So we were watching and making sure that our people and our aircraft were able to get out of Pakistani airspace. And thankfully, there was no engagement with Pakistani forces," he added.

Those are 4 eye-opening paragraphs!

PB

[Spinny Liberal]

6. Best decision they ever made