A book company said Wednesday that it will release on September 11 a
firsthand account of the raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin
Laden.
Christine Ball, director
of marketing and publicity for Dutton, a subsidiary of Penguin Group
USA, said the book was written by a Navy SEAL under a pen name.
Although CNN has
confirmed the name of the SEAL, the network agreed not to publish his
identity at the request of Pentagon officials who said the information
might lead to other SEALs on the raid being identified through social
media links.
After The Associated
Press and Fox News reported the SEAL's name online Thursday, many other
websites, including The New York Times and USA Today, published his
identity.
The book is entitled "No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden."
The former Navy SEAL was
on the Bin Laden raid, according to Pentagon officials. The 36-year-old
chief petty officer left the Navy as a highly-decorated commando in
April, but he could be subject to criminal prosecution, they said.
His military awards
include five Bronze Stars with a special combat designation and a Purple
Heart. He led others under fire at least seven times, Pentagon
officials said.
The book account includes the stealth helicopter crash that could have killed the author and his teammates, his publisher said.
U.S. Special Operations
Command has not reviewed the book or approved it, a Defense Department
official said. Officials only recently became aware the former SEAL was
writing a book but were told it encompasses more than just the raid and
includes vignettes from training and other missions.
They would like to see a
copy, the official said, to make sure no classified information is
released or the book contains any information that might out one of the
team members.
Officials have been told that some of the profits are going to charity.
About two dozen U.S.
Special Operations members and two helicopters were involved in the raid
early May 2, 2011, in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed bin Laden.
The raid occurred in a
span of 38 minutes, after CIA reports of repeated sightings of a tall
man doing "prison yard walks" around the yard of the housing compound in
Abbottabad, which was under constant surveillance, an official said on
condition of anonymity a few days after the raid.
U.S. authorities did not
definitively determine beforehand that the man was bin Laden, but they
eventually concluded that there was enough evidence to go through with
the operation.
One helicopter made a
hard landing when it apparently came too close to a wall. It landed
inside the western side of the compound with its tail rotor over the
southern wall.
The first man killed in
the mission -- which the U.S. official said was code-named Operation
Neptune Spear -- was the Kuwaiti courier who had worked for bin Laden.
He was shot dead after a brief gunfight in a guest house. From that
point on, it is believed no other shots were fired at the U.S. forces,
the official said -- which contrasts with early U.S. government reports
describing the operation as a "firefight."
The troops then moved
into the compound's three-story main building, where they shot and
killed the courier's brother. As they went upstairs and around
barricades, one of bin Laden's sons rushed at them and was killed.
Neither of these men had weapons either on them or nearby, the official
said.
The U.S. official said
that the team then entered the third-floor room where bin Laden was,
along with his Yemeni wife and several young children. The al Qaeda
leader was moving, possibly toward one of the weapons that were in the
room, when he was shot, first in the chest and then in the head. He
never had a gun in hand but posed an imminent threat, according to the
U.S. official.
Bin Laden's body was
flown to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, then in the North Arabian
Sea. After DNA tests and further confirmations of his identity, he was
buried at sea within 12 hours of his killing "in conformance with
Islamic precepts and practices," White House press secretary Jay Carney
said.
President Obama met with
some of the Navy SEALs, often referred to as SEAL Team Six and
officially as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, at Fort
Campbell, Kentucky.
The U.S. raid, which was conducted without the knowledge of Pakistan, enraged the Pakistani public and embarrassed its military.
Three months later, 15 members of Seal Team Six were killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.
Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal are working on a movie about the raid.
"Zero Dark Thirty" is
about the decade-long hunt for bin Laden. Bigelow and Boal are the team
behind the 2008 Oscar-winning film "The Hurt Locker."
The new movie was said
to be set for release just before the election, but after Republicans
complained that it was a pro-Obama ad, it was pushed back until
December. There is some dispute over whether it was ever meant for
release before December.
The movie has been the focus of a Washington partisan fight since last summer.
The Pentagon's inspector general began an inquiry after questions were raised by Rep. Peter King, R-New York.
He demanded
investigations by the Department of Defense and CIA inspectors general
into what, if any, classified information about Special Operations
tactics, techniques and procedures were leaked to the filmmakers,
calling the film a "potentially dangerous collaboration" between liberal
filmmakers and the administration.
Some of what those
investigations found did show collaboration between the administration
and the filmmakers, but Defense Department and White House officials
have said it's no different than what they give many filmmakers and news
reporters on a regular basis.
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