for years. the trail was quite cold. former cia director mike hayden didn t have much to go on. most of what we had felt more like elvis sightings than intelligence. until u.s. intelligence zeroed in on that compound. an unusual compound, unusual in its security, unusual in its size and, frankly, unusual in its location. its location, a half a mile from pakistan s premier military academy in abbottabad. here in the operations center at the national geospatial intelligence agency, we move to activity resolution. translation, it s not just
hayden didn t have much to go on. most of what we had felt more like elvis sightings than intelligence. until u.s. intelligence zeroed in on that compound. an unusual compound, unusual in its security, unusual in its size and, frankly, unusual in its location. its location, a half a mile from pakistan s premier military academy in abbottabad. here in the operations center at the national geospatial intelligence agency, we move to activity resolution. translation, it s not just about satellite photos anymore. now the patterns of behavior they reveal are much more telling.
they continue to ransom people to this day. the documents paint a picture of an organization fearful for its leaderary life. a deputy urged bin laden to quote, make the period between contacts longer and further apart apart. take excessive caution and care especially this year. that warning wasn t enough to save the terror leader. the united states has conducted an operation that killed osama bin laden. just a few weeks after it was sent, the cia trablged bin laden to his compound in pakistan and may 1, 2011 navy s.e.a.l.s shot him in the head. another stunning revelation, the papers showed al qaeda tried to cut a deal with pakistan s intelligence service known as isi. apparently cease-fire discussions fell through. as you know the packkistani government maintains they had no idea bin laden was hiding in its country. in abbottabad. thanks very much for that. let s get some analysis. joining us our cnn national security analyst peter bergen
signals intelligence. but there was information that came from detainees, post-enhanced interrogation which heightened our awareness, our understanding of the importance of this one courier which detainee who was the recipient of this enhanced interrogation there were provideded the tip that this courier could lead the u.s. to bin laden in abbottabad, pakistan? it s never that simple. there are people we knew about but we knew of them only as among the many people who had contact with bin laden. other detainees would say, no, this guy brought me in information directly from bin laden so he s more important. other detainees would say something else. you mix it all together, you weave it together to get the picture that led you to bin laden. peter, you have an excellent article on cnn.com that you posted today on whether or not these enhanced interrogation techniques helped the u.s. find bin laden. the senate report provides the fullest accounting so far of the exact s
there were never less than 5 people living in it. the extent of incompetence to put it mildly was astounding if not unbelievable. roger, the pakistanis didn t want those revelations coming to light. yeah, for very clear reasons because your jaw drops when you read this text and realize the extent of incompetence on the part of the pakistani at the state and local level. but what bin laden did to a certain degree was he practiced good operational security. he maintained a very small security footprint, relied on his family for a lot of different things. that all said, when he moved into the complex in abbottabad, the fact it did not trigger anybody to say anything to anybody in office is the real big question. i believe it also reflects a cultural issue which is there are a lot of folks on the street who saw something out of the ordinary. they weren t they weren t trained. they weren t prepared to two to