Role in your book. You challenge every detail, the official narrative and media reports. Can you start by summarizing briefly what you found in this piece . The one reality is the president did authorize the execution, if you will will, of bin laden and the seal carried it out. It was done in a resort town about 5060 miles uphill from the capitol. It is a place that in the summer, if you have been in the summer, it gets to 120. So it is called the Marthas Vineyard of pakistan. Where the rich and the generals and senior officials go. After that, what i describe as the lewis carol story because the white house said this was all done. He had gone there last time we heard about him we were looking in the torah bora area. The hindu kush mountains. We are still in the war, 15 years later, but that is another question. There is no end because it is the same policy. Bin laden, the president of the United States, barack obama followed the cheneybush policy too much. The white house story is that oh, my, god we had wonderful couriers. People in the basement were tracking them. And bin laden once he left torah bora he was the energetting energe energe en energetic and then with the use of torture, waterboarding, if anybody saw the movie generated from this, dark 30 i think it is called, it begins with the torture. Enhanced interrogation, waterboarding, we got the evidence we wanted and got bin laden but we didnt tell the pakistanis and went in my ourselves. Two choppers evaded the radar of pakistan, went in did the mission, killed the guy. And in the next story he had an ak47 when they confronted bin laden and in order to protect themselves the seals had to shoot him in a room on a compound there. We fled out and we had a chopper that was blew up it was an accident crash landing. Since the 22 squads, actually four squads of six, and this navy seals, even though they havent been on water in years, they still move in groups of six which is how many fit into a dinghy. A nice touch. The seals are going crazy with the idea of not going into the water anymore and many leave because that is what not they were trained to do. The seals went in and had to kill them. A rescue chopper came in which was a twin engine chopper, i for got the name of it. It is carrying 55 passengers and travels is 110 Miles Per Hour at most. They took it ought because they didnt have the black hawk and flew out without being on the radar. He was killed and the war on terror was over. I was happy tee see him. In the next week, it is what happens when you get a story like this. The white house controls the narrative. They are being begged for briefings. They had a recount he didnt have an ak47 and then there was a huge fire shot and lots of people were killed. If you remember, his wives and children were taken away and we will interrogate them. That never happened. They were flown out a month or so later back to saudi arabia. All of the stories design grai d disintegrated. One of the stories was they brought a dog in and when the chopper crashed they had to blow it up and if neighbors came, in this elegant area of pakistan, a resort area. If people came to wonder what was going on the dog was put outside to tell them to stay away. I remember thinking we have a dog that barks in the local language. There was no story that would not go. The Fire Department in this area, which is very skilled, the police department, didnt show up at all. Even though the time of the mission which was supposed to be 20 ended up being 40 because the seals had to fly in a rescue chopper without the pakistani knowledge. It is such a bad story. Let me just tell you a few things. One of my complaints chronically, when i speak to schools and i speak more in europe on Investigative Journalism than here. But the annual meetings of the investigative reporting group, i speak to a lot of schools and the first thing i always say is you have to read before you write. We know that been lad n works for us. In the early 80s we decided we are going to have a proxy war with the russians in afghanistan. And sheldon floyd, and we were going to help fight the war and win the war. And we began paying a lot of money to the Pakistani Intelligence Service which has now become one of the great top services of all time. The pakistani isi is like the egyptian military. They have great investment, own things, buy property in australia, they are building a huge housing complex. They are big, tough and very skilled. We know that. We brought that in to help us fight the taliban and other groups. Help us win the war against the russians. The grid was put up and with the russians moved in the indians moved in. They setup consulates. One of things he did and it was reported in the press, they invaded some of the consulates and began killing pakistani diplomats and even hanging some. By 85 when they were active, helping us beat the russians and drive them out, the indians just delivered them. We build a sophis sophisticated 3d radar system and between the two areas there is one or two flights a week now and it is about an hour flight. 350 miles or so. My god, you had to do was look up the kind of radar system they had and the basic story our two black hall helicopters could evade radar was ludicrous. Host what you said in the article and the book, let me suggest things, it wasnt really an intelligence that led to where bin laden was but it was a tip from a pakistan officer. We took the pakistani and said we know where he is or you co p cooperate or else. They cleared the deck, we moved into pakistan ooknowing knowing they were standing down in and around the skies and compound of pakistan. There was no fight. Just one guy when was obliterated by the fire. They let us setup a command center in a nearby pakistani facility to guide the operation. Is that about right . Perfect summary. The man that walked in, i could be less coy about him now because the pakistanis know who he is. He was a colonel in army intelligence. There were 25 million on the table. We offered that much money. He came in 2010 and to show you how naive i am, i made a point of early in the piece writing he went directly to our station chief. A confidant guy named john bank and what i did in the article was i wrote that bank was there because he had been mentioned earlier because there was a flap involving the cia and his name was mentioned which is illegal. I mention him by name for the simple reason i thought the way you could go after me in the story, it was a long story, 10,000 words and checked carefully. Just as careful as when i worked for the new york review. I knew it would jeopardize. I thought the way i could bow hurt is if they could convince john pank who had a reputation. They Pay Attention to the fact of who wasnt talking about it. One guy was directly involved. The other point is the critical point here is when all of this is being planned and we confronted the pack tany we were enraged at them. The whole point was they were going to look the other way. We would take them out. We had to take the buddy out and we will not talk about it and then we agreed the president would announce we had a drone raid. We do it all the time in the afghan side and we hit a wooden house with the hell fire mission and did after action look and pound the long, tall guy there. Bin laden is 64. We did dna and got him. That would have been just as good. But that night, and i remember this was it was a sunday night in washington, and by 7 308 00 there were reports the president has a special announcement to make. He didnt go public until three hours after the first word. There was political pressure on him not to wait. They have been reappointed or allowed to stay. He was very close to the bush family. He thought we should bomb the place and not jeopardize the seals. Because if something went wrong and they were captured they were basically committing a war crime. They went into a country without notice to the authorities and that is theoretically what happened. Here is what the issue was for gates and me as a journalist. What is so important about pakistan . Why spend so much time cozying up to the generals who run it . When i wrote about this in 2009 they have more than a hundred Nuclear Weapons and we worry about that. There is a huge muslim fundamentalist population there and the reason the pakistanis never said anything about them. The oso found them in 06 which may not be correct. It might be earlier. The pakistanis kept them secretly because the public would go nuts. The public loved bin laden. 50 or 40 of the country saw him as a hero. As long as they had bin laden they could tell the alqaeda groups and the taliban groups in pakistan and afghanistan we got your guy. Pay more attention to us. The second argument is the Saudi Arabians paid him a lot of money. He came from a wealthy family, construction family, not royal but major constructionists in building buildings. Nobody wanted an american int r intear interrogation team. What we did for them. Want a nuke helicopter . Yeah. Want to go play golf with Jack Nicholson . We will fix it up. We did that stuff because we wanted them to trust uzenough to let us know where the bombs were. It was a cat and mouse going on. We didnt tell them what they planneded and they didnt tell us anything. The fear was some of the bombs, were they in igloos or under the ground, some were hidden in the tall grass on the run way. When the president decided to violate the agreement he is jeopardizing relationships until today among the pakistani leadership about being hung out to dry. If they were holding captive and protecting him and using him to their advantage they have a lot to answer for. Your story has been disparaged against. But there were other folks like nbc and others that confirmed details of what you reported. Are you surprised there has been so littleal followup . So few journalists have picked up one or two piece and tried to confirm or disprove what you wrote. Are you concerned or surprised by that . When i was at the New York Times for 78 years i was their lead Investigative Reporter winning prizes about writing about watergate and the cia in germany and domestic spying. If somebody said there was a great story published by the New York Times i want you to follow it and i would say i dont follow others i do my own. It is a bitchy business. A lot of the times reporters dont want to follow someone elses story. Here is what got me. Within a week of the story, one of those reporters who doesnt like to follow other stories and this reporter was asked about my story and they said there was five or six publications and i dont know where that is but that part of the story doesnt work. In the 60s i was getting onthejob training and if anybody broke a good story they would wake me up at 11 00. I thought the kid was lying about everything. He later talked about a wonderful movie by a great moviemaker. Anyway, i would call up sand an that tells you how bitchy the business is. This book came out in london at the same time and i went for a few days for a big event. In my case, within the Senior Editor of the newspaper there, we had a lot of people there, i turned tables on him after a few minutes. I asked him, i said you guys are clos closer, you go to indiana and you are more sophisticated. And he said yes. And i said what did you think . And he said well, we had meetings we concludes was impossible for the pakistani isi because a bottom bot is in the center of the secret base you mentioned earlier but the secrec base we worked with the Pakistani Intelligence Service and a base in which the pakistanis train the guards for the nuclear arsenal. Two reactors. Pakistan has a plutonium reactor. If you draw a circle, it was clear he had no internet, electronic connection. He was completely isolated. With woe landed our guys walked into a business by an isi official. We had a blow and he was a pr prisoner of war not of love. There has been a lot of criticism, too, of the story. Not just lack of followup but i looked at a few quotes. It is fate moon landing. This is called a salon of nonsense. The salon and political box weighed in and the Washington Post talked about being too kind and firing their media guy. What is this all about . Why was there so much not just failure to follow up but this kind of nastiness of accusing you of being a conspiracy person . What is that about . Guest well, most of my stories have a lot of criticism. When i did the abu grave story it was there. But the original stories, tthe New York Times late december, the Washington Post took three months to see that wasnt right. There were not files. The cia was not keeping files on americans and all of that stuff eventually tex eventually you tell me. I dont want to describe what that is about. It is obvious what it is in some cases. I have been doing this a long time and writing stories that should have been written much earlier. Part of that, in the base of mike boden, he wrote black hawk down and he is a good friend. I quote him because you have to go something, first. In the cia when you have a walkin, that manner, you protect the walky. Here you have in the basement of the intelligence bureau, a bunch of people working on tracking couriers. If you Pay Attention to the Intelligence Committee which last you if you remember, they published a major report on terror and torture. If you remember the report it was 6,000 passengers. Only 500 pages were cleared and published. If you read them, as i did, there was a section on couriers and described how the cia was trying to track them and couldnt get anywhere. Couldnt make any sense. The names we have problems with e and a in the name. They are spelled differently in the west. We said it was impossible to track. According to the cia, the briefs, not so much in the initial statements but a day or two later, senior officials and they can get the counter twim and they gave the briefing and talked about tracking them by cure areas and all got into the torture business. Gates fought bitterly against it saying dont start lying about torture because the cia is worried about the congressional hearings and may be legal finding on what they did. The cia was killing people. They tortured people and they bled to death or whatever. In some cases there were murders and no justice. So you had that issue. You were trying to justify using couriers and you had to contradict the earlier stories about this guy being isolated. They talked about him watching pornography and you could say anything you wanted in the first few days. Everything was taken down. The people doing the courier tracking were told you help us find them. You want them to think so because reporters can talk to them and they can be convinced they had. You dont tell them about a walkin. You tell nobody about that. That sa that is a secret even inside the agency. The other element is bowden wrote a piece called a ticktock piece. He wrote a piece about the operation for vanity fair. In it he included a photograph of bin laden being buried at sea. I knew and liked park and didnt want to embarrass him. I knew a lot. I knew that bin laden was taken to the base in pakistan close to the hindu kush mountains. The Aircraft Carrier they needed was like 800 miles away in the indian sea. Secondly, i knew and not ways i want to disclose because i dont want navvy officers embarrassed but everything was reported and that Aircraft Carrier never turned around to pick anybody up. That is very important. They have to do that. There is no such report in the log. And the logs have sense been classified. The third thing is i didnt know their imam aboard an Aircraft Carrier ready to do an official muslim marriage. I knew it was impossible that happened. I called up mark, who was speaking at the university of delaware, and i said to mark, i am going to ask you a question to which i think the answer before i ask you is no. Here is the question did you actually see the photographs you described so vividly in the article . Long pause and he said no. I said how did you learn about them . J was given a briefing about them from somebody i trust. I said why didnt you say you had not seen them . Something to the effect we wished he had or the editor didnt want it. Anyway, so it happened theres a brook running and i remember they change the color of this. You can do that good so anyway, i dont know why people dont pay more attention to that stuff. Post go i found a quote from Hillary Clinton when she became secretary of state with her first visit to pakistan. The first part of 2009. And she said, this is a quote from her and that distant pakistan. I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where osama bin laden. She would not have said that i dont think in 2009 in pakistan if she didnt have some assurance from the Intelligence Community that in fact the pakistanis did know in 2009 exactly where he was. So there she is on record saying we heard this. After the raid in 2011, just two years later he said quote, theres absolutely no evidence that anyone at the highest levels of the packet any government mail. So in other words, she went back on what she said after the raid. I dont want to politics into this discussion, but what does that say about secretary clinton and do you think this is something she should be asked issues are never president . You know, its not going to be asked because it involves too much to know. It is complicated and politics is played out. Guest she said this once in two years later guest you have to be someone who buys into the question about what happens. Ill tell you something more. In his initial statement that i come in the president when he decided the political people oneout, he made a lot of assertion. I read a lot about it. I dont know whether he knew everything he was saying was untrue because the president sometimes get his speech and read the speech. He described bin laden as having been confronted with lack of democratic treasure trove of documents. When a maker carries, sometimes they say if they had time to carrier bags of books or is this most of the enlisted guys. Some of them arent sure very bright. I cant imagine that the seals are after hogmanay chopper crash being in a panic sitting there looking at the page say which one should i take first . Its comical some of the stuff they did. You have to buy into that jury. That night the president also said i want to thank the pakistani counterintelligence forces and they had to get rid of that. Within days they were explicitly saying the president misspoke in the next week he went on television. Within a week i ended the day after the raid that there was trouble. They admit several problems for them. I did know that from somebody high up in the white house. He was against this. And then, what people dont want to know about me i guess since i wrote a piece for the new yorker about the pakistani bomb and i spent weeks in pakistan. Ive been there three or four times before that. I spent weeks and i really got into some interesting stuff to the point, heres what happens to the government and you come in with some issues. Some issues that are uncomfortable. The white house denies everything. Its what they do. So there was i sent our goal basically was to make sure packets danny could not fire a bomb without our approval and if they ever try to, we wanted to be in a position to knock out the host system so they could fire. Electronically, actually attacked it with peers and so after denying our best, the white house called up my editor and they got a call from someone behind the government. The night before close of mr. Bennett thursday night. He goes to print friday night at midnight in tennessee. And he said that theyre very concerned and they said that the story, one of the things we did at the new yorker in the london review of three to share where we are writing. They just sad that the american government, that he respect did maybe just because of the position, had told them that the story is published as it was, we would have to close our embassy immediately end the conflict come in that country had moved the people out for fear of riots because the fundamentalists have up to bomb would attack them for latching gates of a town on the story quite a bit. Quite a bit. So i have contacts. I have contacts in pakistan. But then it i heard the day after that there was problems in river city inside the white house with bob gates. He was seen as somebody who wasnt on the team im then. I heard them from somebody close to the Intelligence Service in pakistan a threepage email that described pretty much what i ended up raining. I went to american, had to wait a day or so. I went to some americans who would have known everything about it. I have contacts. As a journalist, we all have to depend on access. If you cover the white house he got to maintain good relationships. You cant off the wagon too much. The man, the thing you want to somebody in the government, many people whose loyalty when they sign the oath of office is to the constitution and not to the president. When you have somebody like that on the end died who was appalled by the line and the misdirection in and also leaving the two senior generals who controlled the bottom of the reason they hate us. One option was to tell everything to the people and how their children not be able to what school because of fear of being counterattacked by the fundamentalists who are very vigorous therapy at the other option is to what they did. Our radio system a radar system didnt work. Heres a radar system we paid and we could find it. All you have to do with some work if you record it next week making the white house for another briefing. Take a look at whats online. You can find stuff. Even the most secret contracts have to be announced with topsecret contracts. They have to be announced somewhere in the government. All he had to do and see that the stories about the radar map working. We left in this horrible possession to say to their nation that their National Defense this comment including to protect their attack for native indian is capable of being easily defeated. This underlying so i believe youre messing with the two guys that control earning ampersand he had to really read and why the power behind what im writing to in the real issue that we jeopardized the relationship we to be soap right to. It is fair and was not on good terms with the pakistanis. Im sorry, go ahead. Host a large part of your book was very difficult through the hall of mirrors, the United States is supporting some rivals are not other rivals that were supporting iraq, but iraq support Syria Government and iran supports the iraqi and syrian government. It is en masse. You talk a lot about the area and a number of other things. One of the points that really struck me is the chapter you call military to military. You talk about how the military essentially on its own initiative, the joint chiefs undertook to sabotage or undercut residential policy because they didnt agree with that. You say on page 101 we did this on page 102 obama didnt know. It was not some sinister joint chiefs going around obama to support, but a few pages later you say assad understood this message. He said doesnt sound like the military independent and keen in action, but it does sound exactly like that. Regardless of what you think about obama syria policy and as a reporter instead my reporting on that. Isnt it kind of scary the military as you report undertook to provide intelligence and directly by u. S. Official policy was to support the overthrow . I think this happened. Youre asking a complicated question. Youve done a close read on it. It isnt complicated because you say directly the military did something independently without informing the white house to essentially support. I dont want to call transcendent enemy. Someone we didnt like and are trying to get rid of. The issue is very complicated. The american policy if we remember one of the articles there was about the shipping of weapons into cherokee. We now know of course is pretty well known. It has become quite crazy. Now just in the last day or so the u. N. Is raising questions about the opposition curse thats going on daily. Theres no question on that. We had for years to get the white house to switch from the Military Point of view, whatever moderate existed in 2012 bennett 23rd team have been overtaken by the crazy. The groups supported by saudi arabia and qatar most notably. They have lost a lot of leverage inside. Many of them by the way, 61 various tribal groups have made accommodation in the last six or so months that hes been making accommodations with groups this effect did. But they were disaffected because the control of the opposition was in the hands of people with a taken over the country wouldve caused enormous struggle. Israel wouldve been concerned about a government because they wouldve been the next target of the iranian. It is very difficult for them to get a reading in the white house. The president was isolated. My understanding was on a lot of issues, memos from the chairman of the joint chiefs, general dempsey who is now retired with disappearing to avoid. This is something you hear quite a bit had a lot of bureaucratic stuff doesnt get to the president. Hes isolated and removed. So yes, they did decide that it is very important to maintain leverage. That doesnt mean that some future time if an election process goes on he would be out of office, but at this time he was getting shaky in 2013 and we were also very concerned that at the facts, and it is a fact. I even mention the documents in one story, very secret si had that by early spring of 2013 were passing chemicals into mr. Ima became for radical groups that created a form very difficult to work with. We knew they had the capabilities. There was anything the shooting in july, may, june and july about how many troops would it take the white house, all of the chemicals and weapons in the opposition. We thought about doing that. This is before a the august event in which we claimed bashar murdered his own people with gas. The issue was we had the kind of intelligence that he needed. We have satellite intelligence. We have intercepts. The germans were there helping them. Once they asked for help, im giving it a rationale here not just with the import was and what was understood. We always think about general dempsey. He majored in english at the academy, military academy. The army which nospaceoff in recognizing he was quite skilled as a student. A lot of them spent two years getting a degree in fine art. Theyve been known among their friends and peers for his reading knowledge and for his love but its been acknowledged. Sort of a passionate devotee. The day he retired, he retired august 31st of last year and instead of joining the 14 boards of defense corporations, many of their former chairman doing that 500,000 a year or more. He went back and gave an appointment at duke. Enso he made the call with the help of others in the joint chiefs and government perhaps to start helping supplying bashar assad, the president and get enough here. As area, with intelligent that would help them turn the corners on the war. And he did. The other big thing that happened in the last year that doesnt seem like treason to you to deliberately undercut the president s policy . You can quit it. General and then you can speak out, the kind of hot dissolute and say yes, sir if youre in the joint, dont you . I find it pretty pretty refreshing to be the chairman of the joint chiefs try to express the view and in the same article in the nextparagraph. I mention dempsey by name, to in the article. The former head of the Defense Intelligence agency. Host youre talking about michael c. Fund . Guest michael flynn. He cites him as a source, one of the few people on the record and you portray him as kind of a truth teller and somebody who resisted obama. He was fired as head of dia a couple years ago. But here is the thing about flynn. Hes recently emerged as an advisor, one of the top advisers of donald trump. Hes written a book with Michael Ledeen who was one of it is called sealed the fate, how we can win the global war against radical islam and its outcries. He has clearly put himself in that camp of an extremist fighting as fun in the global war. I dont know why he was fired, but the sound of a coming he was fired because he was insubordinate. He was a radical who wanted to go after these guys and he accused the president of not wanting to fight hard enough against islam is done and all that, just the way the ultraconservatives do. You quote him as a truth teller. One of the issues about 10, as you know he also worked as the head of intelligence for the joint special Operations Command for years. They are fascinating people by the hundreds by the counter and urgency after. There was a lot of that going on that was considered to be. It always got great press promoted by obama after years in iraq and being very bloody to the head of the war in an. Flynn was always there. Always active at the press corps. A lot of people had email. You of course describe somebody very conservative and pushed out. The fact of the matter was very kind to stay with everything i knew. What if i insist there is a whole reports that summer about all new start and a safe id urge very early i will tell you he was shot out and we wanted him shoved out earlier. When you get a source on the record many saying something that you know and documents you have. If you make it a point to make sure he was a buddy who has held. He wasnt necessarily in this case. Even the chairman of the joint chiefs were on this issue. There are many issues they were not simpatico on. He was certainly israel problem i see created and was reorganizing things. He was reorganizing things on the end that. And all fairness to the guy, and that casey was absolutely right. They actually came from his office and went to his days. The cia, nsa, israeli intelligence, some of the report going on about the amount of their potential in the opposition before what happened in august, before the been in the suburb of 1400 people. Thats how many was alleged to be killed. It is a tough go. Somebody on the record and what he sang insisting. Consistent with other people involved in terms of that narrow issue is that political view way off the chart. But on the issue of what he was being and what they were saying, he was very consistent. The argument against tennessee was now the period with a very conservative guy. If you go back in my . Is used when he was working despite the fact he was known to be third of a rightwing sort of guy like many officers are. You live and die. I dont want to talk about it. I think it was about an inability to get the white house to recognize reported, which is the moderate tone exists. This was reported consistently by all sources and died and they werent paying attention to it. So at that point the chairman of the joint chiefs made the call that make some sense to me. The argument that the chairman of the joint chiefs is always beholden to the white house, again, hes beholden to the constitution is what im saying. Thats what he saw. The white house is not paying attention and obama for better or worse, theres one complaint is really have a hard time getting up to him. Host not too many generals are constitutional lawyers. Thats really what i was getting at when i asked the question if i dont know if generals know what the constitution says or means. It certainly is their job to interpret it. Weve got a too wrapped up here. You mentioned about the legacy. At least on foreign policy. It kind of starts with the iran deal may be in a pledge to adams or worse than iraq and an on clinton and kerry were pushing for a much greater escalation of that type. On the other hand on his leg if we hear legacy. Guest we just had one in the New York Times last sunday when he was bragging about how they manipulated the press and the iranian deal. It is wonderful what he did, but the critical thing wasnt about sanctions and pressures. It was about the fact that after 12 or 13 years that we will discuss a nuclear deal with e. U. When you stop all enrichment. Does the required that companies stop. Two or three years ago we made it known you can keep on enriching and that is when the deal got going. There is nothing wrong with saying that. There is nothing wrong in the deal when we still accused bashar assad. When the attacks took place, they had intelligence caloric that there were two suspects. And also the military. They only had one suspect. They didnt tell the American People there is another suspect and they also didnt tell them they didnt say, the chairman of the joint chief of general clapper, director of Overall NationalIntelligence Committee over Rating Agency have both told the president that they couldnt be sure that they had a case. They both said its not a slam dunk because what weve seen doesnt match what we know to be in ours will. I dont like not telling the truth about critical issues. What he may not have done and im not saying i know, im saying the whole story has not been told by the white house is like a viable to me. You can get to vote in the congress today. Hes a hip there. We love our hipsters. Ill take a second and say this year. Hes fighting a lifeanddeath war with those people. If isis are one of those people give them power, he and his wife and their two beautiful children will be hung up like mussolini would her throat cut in the square. Yes, he is his barrel bombs. I know what country was seven years in a war in which there are National Security was not at stake. It was us. Please barrel bombs fall barrel bombs fall of asset, and to fully with consequences to people as we know now with deformities of vietnam. Seven years we drop bombs because they are cheaper. It is 63 gallons and its cheaper than dropping a 500 pounder. I always wonder when we attacked them for that. First we did it. I always wondered about the morality of that. Is it really better if he is 500pound bomb which had three times as much legal stuff . Im not making a case for the guy. Is he any worse than the guys in saudi arabia who are chopping