Sy Hersh's Bombshell

Dreyfuss talks about Seymour Hersh, the dean of American investigative journalists. In a 10,000-word blockbuster in the London Review of Books, Hersh unfurls an astounding counternarrative about the May 2, 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Hersh dismantles the official story, challenging virtually everything that's been said about the attack on the Abbottabad compound by Special Operations commandos, including the fictionalized version in Kathryn Bigelow's nail-biter Zero Dark Thirty and the avalanche of commentary from self-styled terrorism experts, including CNN's Peter Bergen. According to Hersh, the US didn't find bin Laden by diligently sifting intelligence data and tracking an alleged courier, but because a Pakistani defector walked into the US embassy in Islamabad and told the CIA that Al Qaeda's chief was holed up in Abbotabad. Nor was bin Laden hiding--instead, says Hersh, he had been captured by the ISI in 2006 and was being held prisoner. Pakistan, called out on its deception, then opted to cooperate with Washington in a staged raid on bin Laden's prison, withdrawing guards and clearing the airspace for US helicopters, Hersh writes.