"John" an American Hero

[rightwinger]

We will never know his name, but along with the Navy SEALS, America owes a debt of grattitude to the CIA operative whose perserverence lead to the ultimat e killing of Osama bin Laden

Persistent CIA hunter brought down bin Laden - USATODAY.com

Hidden from view, standing just outside the frame of that now-famous photograph was a career CIA analyst. In the hunt for the world's most-wanted terrorist, there may have been no one more important. His job for nearly a decade was finding the al-Qaeda leader.

The analyst was the first to put in writing last summer that the CIA might have a legitimate lead on finding bin Laden. He oversaw the collection of clues that led the agency to a fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. His was among the most confident voices telling Obama that bin Laden was probably behind those walls.

 

[rightwinger]

Call him John, his middle name.

John was among the hundreds of people who poured into the CIA's Counterterrorism Center after the Sept. 11 attacks, bringing fresh eyes and energy to the fight.

He had been a standout in the agency's Russian and Balkan departments. When Vladimir Putin was coming to power in Russia, for instance, John pulled together details overlooked by others and wrote what some colleagues considered the definitive profile of Putin. He challenged some of the agency's conventional wisdom about Putin's KGB background and painted a much fuller portrait of the man who would come to dominate Russian politics.

That ability to spot the importance of seemingly insignificant details, to weave disparate strands of information into a meaningful story, gave him a particular knack for hunting terrorists.

"He could always give you the broader implications of all these details we were amassing," said John McLaughlin, who as CIA deputy director was briefed regularly by John in the mornings after the 2001 attacks.

From 2003, when he joined the counterterrorism center, through 2005, John was one of the driving forces behind the most successful string of counterterrorism captures in the fight against terrorism: Abu Zubaydah, Abd al-Nashiri, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Ramzi bin Alshib, Hambali and Faraj al-Libi.

But there was no greater prize than finding bin Laden.

Bin Laden had slipped away from U.S. forces in the Afghan mountains of Tora Bora in 2001, and the CIA believed he had taken shelter in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. In 2006, the agency mounted Operation Cannonball, an effort to establish bases in the tribal regions and find bin Laden. Even with all its money and resources, the CIA could not locate its prime target.

By then, the agency was on its third director since Sept. 11, 2001. John had outlasted many of his direct supervisors who retired or went on to other jobs. The CIA doesn't like to keep its people in one spot for too long. They become jaded. They start missing things.

John didn't want to leave. He'd always been persistent. In college, he walked on to a Division I basketball team and hustled his way into a rotation full of scholarship players.

The CIA offered to promote him and move him somewhere else. John wanted to keep the bin Laden file.

He examined and re-examined every aspect of bin Laden's life. How did he live while hiding in Sudan? With whom did he surround himself while living in Kandahar, Afghanistan? What would a bin Laden hideout look like today?

The CIA had a list of potential leads, associates and family members who might have access to bin Laden.

"Just keep working that list bit by bit," one senior intelligence official recalls John telling his team. "He's there somewhere. We'll get there."

John rose through the ranks of the counterterrorism center, but because of his nearly unrivaled experience, he always had influence beyond his title. One former boss confessed that he didn't know exactly what John's position was.

 

[Claudette]

Kudo's to John and the other CIA folks who did the grunt work on OBL.

The folks who poured over all the incoming intel and made sure our SEALS had the right compound and a shot at OBL.

It wouldn't have happened without em. Kudos to them one and all.

 

[California Girl]

So, it wasn't Obama?

I'm shocked.

Shocked.

Sh-o-cked, I tell ya.

I assume that rightwhiner is gonna claim that 'John, the SEAL' voted for Obama though.

 

[rightwinger]

So, it wasn't Obama?

I'm shocked.

Shocked.

Sh-o-cked, I tell ya.

I assume that rightwhiner is gonna claim that 'John, the SEAL' voted for Obama though.

Scratches head...

What the hell are you blabbing about?

 

[Sallow]

So, it wasn't Obama?

I'm shocked.

Shocked.

Sh-o-cked, I tell ya.

I assume that rightwhiner is gonna claim that 'John, the SEAL' voted for Obama though.

Naw...it was Obama too.

 

[California Girl]

So, it wasn't Obama?

I'm shocked.

Shocked.

Sh-o-cked, I tell ya.

I assume that rightwhiner is gonna claim that 'John, the SEAL' voted for Obama though.

Naw...it was Obama too.

In that he agreed the Op, yea. But.... that's actually what he's paid for.... that whole 'preserve, protect and defend' thing in that oath part of taking office.

 

[Sallow]

So, it wasn't Obama?

I'm shocked.

Shocked.

Sh-o-cked, I tell ya.

I assume that rightwhiner is gonna claim that 'John, the SEAL' voted for Obama though.

Naw...it was Obama too.

In that he agreed the Op, yea. But.... that's actually what he's paid for.... that whole 'preserve, protect and defend' thing in that oath part of taking office.

Yep..that's the gig.

Some take it a bit more seriously then others.

 

[blastoff]

Lots of folks put in endless hours worth of work to get it to the point that it landed on Obama's desk for him to give the final mission a go. Congrats to all of them.

I also tip my hat to Obama, perhaps a little more so than some of my friends on the right. He had to green light it knowing he'd be on the hot seat if something went wrong and we lost troops and bin Laden either hadn't been there or escaped at the last moment. And it seems he had more balls than slick Willie. Don't recall all the details now but I have read that Sandy "pants burglar" Berger was cooling his heels while slick was golfing or something rather than making a quick decision on getting bin Laden or someone else. Eventually Clinton's dithering closed the window of opportunity to strike and that was that.

 

[rightwinger]

Lots of folks put in endless hours worth of work to get it to the point that it landed on Obama's desk for him to give the final mission a go. Congrats to all of them.

I also tip my hat to Obama, perhaps a little more so than some of my friends on the right. He had to green light it knowing he'd be on the hot seat if something went wrong and we lost troops and bin Laden either hadn't been there or escaped at the last moment. And it seems he had more balls than slick Willie. Don't recall all the details now but I have read that Sandy "pants burglar" Berger was cooling his heels while slick was golfing or something rather than making a quick decision on getting bin Laden or someone else. Eventually Clinton's dithering closed the window of opportunity to strike and that was that.

The easy call would have been a drone strike on the compound

Invading Pakistan and landing a SEAL team was the riskiest decision and paid off big time

 

[elvis]

So, it wasn't Obama?

I'm shocked.

Shocked.

Sh-o-cked, I tell ya.

I assume that rightwhiner is gonna claim that 'John, the SEAL' voted for Obama though.

Naw...it was Obama too.

In that he agreed the Op, yea. But.... that's actually what he's paid for.... that whole 'preserve, protect and defend' thing in that oath part of taking office.

the SEAL group should have been paid a lot more...
about 25 million more.