Chris Wallace - Countdown bin Laden: The Untold Story of the 247-Day Hunt to Bring the Mastermind of 9/11 to Justice

New York Times Bestselling Author of Countdown 1945

Countdown bin Laden

The Untold Story of the 247-Day Hunt to Bring the Mastermind of 9/11 to Justice

Chris Wallace

with Mitch Weiss

Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World

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Copyright 2021 by Chris Wallace

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Interior design by Ruth Lee-Mui

Jacket design by Richard Ljoenes

Jacket photograph by Tom Weber; Osama Bin Ladens compound by Akhtar Soomro/Reuters Pictures

Author photo by Sam Kittner

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN 978-1-9821-7652-5

ISBN 978-1-9821-7654-9 (ebook)

To William, Caroline, James, Sabine, Livi, Jack, Teddy, and grandchildren still to come, in the hope it will encourage you to read this book someday.

August 27, 2010

Langley, Virginia

Leon Panetta was speechless. It was almost too perfect. A top Central Intelligence Agency operations officer had just told him about a fortress, a three-story house at the end of a dead-end street in an upscale neighborhood in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Panetta fought back a wave of hope and excitement. He didnt want to share his optimism with anyone else in the room. Not a smile. Not a high five. Not yet.

As director of the CIA, one of the key parts of Panettas job was protecting the United States from foreign terrorist attacks. That meant overseeing teams of operators, analysts, and agents working all over the world, many of them in dangerous hot spots in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. Every piece of information that crossed Panettas desk had to be carefully vetted before he passed it on to his boss, President Barack Obama. But it was hard not to be enthusiastic about this tip. After all, this house might be the hideout for the worlds most dangerous terrorist, a man who had all but dropped off the face of the earth: Osama bin Laden.

Panetta took a few deep breaths. As he worked to keep his emotions in check, he realized that so much had changed so quickly. Just a half hour earlier, he had been wrapping up a routine meeting. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, some thirty intelligence analysts, experts, and case officers from the Counterterrorism Center would jam into a conference room down the hall from Panettas office at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

Like clockwork, the sessions would start at 4:30 p.m. and last more than ninety minutes. During the meetings, the team would update Panetta about the latest issues in the Middle East, problems that could ultimately threaten the security of the United States and its allies. Theyd routinely jump from topic to topicand todays session had been no different. They discussed new developments in the war-torn nations of Iraq and Afghanistan. They talked about the dangerous role the notorious terrorist group Al Qaeda was still playing in both countries.

Maybe it was because it was late on a Friday afternoon in the waning days of summer, but this session seemed to drag on and on. So, when the meeting was over, the analysts, operators, and experts jumped up from their chairs and began filing out of the conference room. But as they grabbed their briefcases and papers, three men approached Panetta, Michael Morell, the CIAs deputy director, and Jeremy Bash, the spy agencys chief of staff.

We need to see you alone, one of the men, Mike, the director of the Counterterrorism Center, said to them. That was a first.

Panetta could sense something was up from Mikes language and tone. If someone wanted to talk to Panetta or a deputy after a meeting, theyd casually ask, Can we go small? But Mike and two well-respected colleagues, Gary, the head of the Centers Pakistan-Afghanistan Department (PAD), and Sam, the agencys leading expert on Al Qaeda, were not feeling casual. Panetta could tell from the look on their faces. If they requested a private meeting, it had to be important.

Why dont we go back to my office, Panetta said.

The group followed him out of the conference room and into the hallway. After a few steps, they reached one of the doors leading to the directors office. Panetta opened it, revealing a larger room with dark brown wood paneling and a wide window that stretched the length of the back wall, letting in natural light. Outside was a view of the Virginia woods below.

Panettas desk was pushed up against a wall on one side of the room. Above it was a tattered American flag in a frame, hung there by his predecessor. The flag came from the World Trade Center. For Panetta, it served as a daily reminder of 9/11, its victims, and the hunt for bin Laden. On the opposite side of the room was a conference table, chairs, and a television mounted on the wall above. That was usually where Panetta held meetings with dignitaries and foreign guests. But this afternoon, it was where Panetta would hold the impromptu session with his colleagues.

Panetta sat at the head of the conference table, while Morell grabbed his usual chair at the other end. When everyone was seated, the three men wasted no time. They disclosed details about a courier they believed had close ties to Al Qaeda.

Weve found this guy named Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, Mike said.

Panetta shrugged. Hed never heard of him. He looked over at Morell and Bash and could tell they hadnt either. So Mike, Gary, a case officer, and Sam, an analyst, took turns recounting the history of al-Kuwaitithe new lead that had taken almost a decade to develop.

The trail went back to shortly after September 11, 2001the day nineteen men hijacked four planes and carried out the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. The terrorists flew two of the planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. A third plane hit the Pentagon just outside of Washington, D.C. A fourth crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. All told, almost 3,000 people were killed, including 2,606 when the Twin Towers collapsed.

The United States quickly traced the attacks to Al Qaeda, a terrorist group founded by Osama bin Laden, a sullen, bearded, rifle-toting Islamic revolutionary who had set up training camps in Afghanistan, a nation controlled by religious extremists known as the Taliban.