‘I shot Bin Laden twice in the head. Then fired again. Insurance’
THE mission to kill Osama bin Laden six years ago was, for obvious reasons, carried out with the utmost stealth and secrecy. But some of the Navy SEAL Team Six members who assassinated him have been slightly less secretive since, with two of them so far claiming to have fired the fatal shots, leaving just a decent interval between assassination and cashing in with massive book deals.
On Tuesday, almost six years to the day of the terror chief’s death, the third and latest book claiming to tell the story of the killing is published in the States. Called The Operator: Firing the Shots That Killed Osama bin Laden, And My Years As A SEAL Team Warrior, it is the work of Robert O’Neill, one of the highly-trained operatives who took part in mission.
A Fox News documentary on his personal website has a caption that reads “The man who killed Usama bin Laden”. The presenter describes O’Neill as “one of America’s bravest warriors” who, on May 1, 2011, took part in Operation Neptune Spear at the fugitive Saudi’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. “As the second man through the door into the room where [bin Laden] was hiding, he fired the fateful shots that brought the biggest manhunt in world history to an end.”. O’Neill’s face then appears on screen. “The face we’re looking at,” the presenter puts it to him, “is the last face that Osama bin Laden saw on earth.” “Yeah, I mean if it was light enough,” O’Neill responds, “I was definitely the last person he saw.”
The operation was monitored at the White House and when bin Laden’s death was confirmed, President Obama told his colleagues: “We got him.” He later went on TV to announce the news. Gradually, books began to appear. Author and academic Peter Bergen, who had previously interviewed bin Laden, brought out Manhunt, a year after the operation. Author Mark Bowden, whose books included Black Hawk Down, wrote The Finish: The Killing Of Osama bin Laden.
The first “insider” account, also in 2012, was No Easy Day, by “Mark Owen”. Owen was a pseudonym for Matt Bissonnette, who ran into trouble with the Pentagon for failing to clear his disclosures with them. He subsequently agreed to give up nearly $7 million in book royalties and speaking fees, and to apologise to the Pentagon, admitting the legal advice he had originally received was wrong.
“I acknowledge my mistake and have paid a stiff price, both personally and financially, for that error,” he said. “I accept responsibility for failing to submit the book for review and apologise sincerely for my oversight.”
In 2012, the Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow released Zero Dark Thirty, her account of the decade-long hunt for bin Laden. Last year, the widely accepted narrative about the operation and its background was challenged by the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh who, in The Killing Of Osama bin Laden, alleged that a rogue Pakistani official had given up bin Laden’s whereabouts to the CIA in exchange for a huge reward – and that Pakistan’s government and military had both been aware since 2006 that the wealthy Saudi fugitive had been holed up in Abbottabad.
Now, almost six years to the day after bin Laden died, comes O’Neill’s book. Like the previous one it comes shrouded in controversy.
O’Neill, 41, is from Butte, Montana, and served with the US Navy for a decade before becoming a SEAL. On his website he says he was part of over 400 combat missions during his military career .
HE was following the team’s “point man” on a stairway up to the third floor of the compound and both were convinced that whoever was on the floor was strapping on a suicide vest. The point man said: “Hey, we got to go, we got to go.” O’Neill thought, “I’m f-----g done with waiting for it to happen”, ran past a curtain, and spotted bin Laden by a bed. “In less than a second, I aimed above the woman’s right shoulder and pulled the trigger twice,” he writes. “Bin Laden’s head split open, and he dropped. I put another bullet in his head. Insurance.” The Daily News noted that while controversy continues to swirl around O’Neill’s version of the raid, much of it “centres on his breaking the Special Ops [Operations] code of silence.”
Former SEAL Jonathan Gilliam saw O’Neill talking about his role in the killing in 2014 and observed that such boasting breached military honour and made O’Neill a target for assassi- nation. Gilliam, a security consultant, noted that O’Neill had served “with great distinction” but he had gone “from hero to zero in the SEAL community when he started using his career to cash in and draw crowds as a [motivational] speaker. It’s ridiculous for O’Neill to claim the credit for the fatal shot as we probably never will know.” Gilliam added that his opinion reflected those views of many SEALs he had spoken to.
Also in 2014, it was reported at least two other SEALS and military chiefs, speaking anonymously, said the “point man” had fired the fatal shot and that O’Neill and Bissonnette fired bullets into someone who was already dying. In his own book Bissonnette says the point man’s shots had entered bin Laden’s head and that he and “another assaulter trained our lasers on his chest and fired several rounds. The bullets tore into him, slamming his body into the floor until he was motionless”.
Irrespective of the controversy, O’Neill’s book is expected to do well – unlike his personal life, where he slid into alcohol abuse, was arrested for drunk driving, broke up with his wife and considered suicide. But some of his old SEAL colleagues may wish that he had put a seal across his lips.
As the second man through the door into the room where [bin Laden] was hiding, he fired the fateful shots that brought the biggest manhunt in world history to an end