Navy SEALs forgot to bring a tape measure

In this file television image broadcast on Qatar's Al-Jazeera TV, is said to show Osama bin Laden, at the wedding of his son in January of 2001.

/ AP Photo/Al-Jazeera/TV

The odds that Osama bin Laden was the mysterious figure seen walking around the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan were estimated by U.S. intelligence at between 60 and 80 percent. When the Navy SEALs shot the tall figure on the upper floor of the compound, fatally hitting him in the chest and near his right eye, the next step was to get a positive ID. They planned to use several reference points, including facial recognition and eventually DNA when the body was transported back to Bagram airbasein Afghanistan.

Another measurement was to determine the height of the corpse. Bin Laden is listed on his FBI most wanted poster as being between 6-feet 4-inches and 6-feet 6-inches and weighing about 160 pounds.

Special Section: The Killing of Osama bin Laden

However, the heavily-armed, electronically wired SEALs didn't come with a tape measure to get an accurate height reading. According to reports, a Navy SEAL of about 6-feet laid out next to bin Laden's corpse to gauge the Al Qaeda leader's height. The corpse was several inches taller.

The Washington Post's legendary reporter Bob Woodward came up with some inside the Situation Room conversation while the raid was underway and the president and his team were watching a muted feed of the action.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden, in the Situation Room of the White House

/ AP Photo/The White House, Pete Souza

After Mr. Obama learned of the improvised height measurement technique, he reportedly said, "We donated a $60 million helicopter to this operation. Could we not afford to buy a tape measure?"

The helicopter in his remark was the stealth technology-outfitted bird that crash-landed as the raid began and had to be destroyed by the SEALs.

Woodward also learned that bin Laden was named "the Pacer" as the intelligence gathering proceeded. Satellite imagery showed a person walking in the compound daily, but the face and exact height of the pacer were not identifiable.

In addition, Woodward learned some specifics about the phone call by the courier Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti that led U.S. intelligence to bin Laden's Abbottabad lair. Speaking to a friend as the U.S. was recording the conversation, al-Kuwaiti said, "I'm back with the people I was with before."

[notreich]

It's the same as when you go fishing -- ya always forget one thing.

[KathyofTexas]

I think that some of what happened in that raid did not need to be released. Do we really need to know that they had not brought a tape measure? Oh my gosh, so you kill a man then you what to make sure you have the right person after he was dead. NO. I feel that too much information really weakens our security measures. We need to have the strongest defense possible. I feel that they should have make sure all of the helicopter should have been destroyed not just half of it.

[kenhamlett]

Now Obama knows why this should have been a Marine operation. They would not only have brought a tape measure but would be good enough shots to avoid hitting the face.
On a separate note if Bush had been in charge he would have ordered the raiders to go to the neighbors' houses and torture everyone until they provided a tape measure.
All in all things went pretty well though. Not everything can go exactly right we should not worry about little details when bullets are flying.

[love2ridend]

Hmm dead is dead. Seems like the SEALS had no problem taking out pirates with swelling seas. The Marines are a terrific military service but I think deep down they know that SEALS are one notch up.

[RealiteBites]

After Mr. Obama learned of the improvised height measurement technique, he reportedly said, "We donated a $60 million helicopter to this operation. Could we not afford to buy a tape measure?"

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omg, the nerve of some people - I know he's the President and all, but if he was going to implement a stupid untested economic theory like QE2, which caused gas prices to rise $10/barrel the next two weeks afterwards to compensate for the declining dollar, couldn't have first spent like 40 hours taking an Econ 101 class?

I think that's ingenious of the SEALs to improvise on their feet like that. Good goin'!!

[notreich]

It's ingenious of you to somehow go from this story to the president is responsible for gas prices (and by implication and ommission that the oil companies don't have anything to do with it.)

[finklestein]

AUDIO CLIP: Top Insider Prepared to Testify 911 Was False Flag Attack- Steve Pieczenik

http://blip.tv/file/5118363

Radio interview on May 3, 2011 this section at 8 minutes 20 seconds here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74dxhpsFrQc

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under three different administrations Steve R. Pieczenik says he is prepared to tell a federal grand jury the name of a top general who told him directly 9/11 was a false flag attack (inside job.) Also says Bin Laden has been "on ice" literally since 2001. Pieczenik served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under Nixon, Ford and Carter, while also working under Reagan and Bush senior, and still works as a consultant for the Department of Defense. Former US Navy Captain. Served as a senior policy planner under Secretaries Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance, George Schultz and James Baker and worked on George W. Bush's election campaign against Al Gore. Also is on Council on Foreign Relations, as well as a medical doctor and a best-selling author who works with Tom Clancy.

TRANSCRIPT: "The event of 911 was carried out for one purpose...to mobilize the American public to go to a war that they didn't need that they knew nothing about where we had pre-positioned soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq 6 to 9 months beforehand, ...it was based on Paul Wolfowitz's, Dick Cheney's, Bush junior, Steve Hadley, Elliot Abrams, in the White House, Khalazid, Dennis Ross who is still an envoy...Condoleeza Rice, all the people who were in the military particularly the Air Force generals who were involved, they can deny it any way they want I hae a whole list of names, they all know who they are, and the intel and CIA operatives who worked under SOLECs, Special Operations for Low Intensity Conflict were all involved...it was called a stand-down and false flag operation in order to mobilize the American public under the false pretense that we had been attacked by Al Qaeda and bin Laden which is an absolute unmitigated lie. I was even told by a general on the staff of Wolfowitz, I will go in front of a federal committee and swear on perjury who that name was so we can break this open...The issue of Osama bin Laden who had died...really brought out the issue of the great war and the great lie that was created for us to make sure we had some kind of commitment to a war that was not necessary in which so much blood and guts were shed for unnecessary reasons."

CREDENTIALS SEARCH:

UK Guardian on recent book on killing of Aldo Moro:

"An American envoy has claimed that he played a critical role in the fate of Aldo Moro, the former Italian prime minister who was murdered by terrorists in 1978. who as, an international crisis manager and hostage negotiator in the State Department, said that Moro had been "sacrificed" for the "stability" of Italy."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1581425/US-envoy-admits-role-in-Aldo-Moro-killing.html

He is also quoted in New York Times here:
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/08/us/seat-of-power-and-woe.html

Member listing at Council on Foreign Relations:
http://www.cfr.org/about/membership/roster.html?letter=P

Citations at National Military Intelligence Association:
http://www.nmia.org/?AIJ0410

ABC Television News Archive, 1986 segment on terrorism featuring Pieczenik as expert source:

http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/program.pl?ID=98903

May 3, 2011

BREAKING: "Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under three different administrations Steve R. Pieczenik says he is prepared to tell a federal grand jury the name of a top general who told him directly 9/11 was a false flag attack" "Bin Laden had already been "dead for months," and that the government was waiting for the most politically expedient time to roll out his corpse. Pieczenik would be in a position to know, having personally met Bin Laden and worked with him during the proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan back in the early 80?s" Top US government insider Dr. Steve R. Pieczenik, a man who held numerous different influential positions under three different Presidents and still works with the Defense Department, shockingly told The Alex Jones Show yesterday that Osama Bin Laden died in 2001 and that he was prepared to testify in front of a grand jury how a top general told him directly that 9/11 was a false flag inside job. Pieczenik cannot be dismissed as a "conspiracy theorist". He served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under three different administrations, Nixon, Ford and Carter, while also working under Reagan and Bush senior, and still works as a consultant for the Department of Defense. A former US Navy Captain, Pieczenik achieved two prestigious Harry C. Solomon Awards at the Harvard Medical School as he simultaneously completed a PhD at MIT...."

MORE
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/05/04/top-us-government-insider-bin-laden-died-in-2001-911-a-false-flag/

FULL INTERVIEW HERE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjtNiTm99e8

[democracy5]

People like you are SUCH an embarrassment!!!

[notreich]

Well I believe the war in Iraq was totally unnecessary at least as far as for the benefit of the vast majority of Americans -- but as far as all of this stuff, not so much.

[rocketjl]

Really, it's OK, they did bring the bullets.

[carol444]

The neocon planning of PNAC (Project for the New American Century, a plan for world domination) led to 911 and the ongoing military invasions of sovereign countries for a NWO. Those involved in 911 will likely be exposed by the bumbling of the Bin Laden "9 deaths" fiasco unraveling. Dr. Pieczenik worked at the top levels of previous administrations; he's the hero character of the Clancy novels. He specifically warns the NAVY and Admiral Mullen not to carry out another false flag attack against Americans. He exposes the 911 perpetrators Bush Jr, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Eliott Abrams, Condoleza Rice, NSA's Stephen Hadley, etc.

Dr. Pieczenik also mentions involvement of Air Force generals' in 911 but doesn't name them in this interview. From other reading, I know that one of them was GEN MEYER.

Dr. Steve Pieczenik: The Psychological Resurrection of Osama Bin Laden 1/2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d679JVfRcOM

[democracy5]

PLEASE, give this total BS a REST already!

[carol444]

TOP GOVERNMENT INSIDER: BIN LADEN DIED IN 2001, 9/11 A FALSE FLAG
http://www.infowars.com/top-us-government-insider-bin-laden-died-in-2001-911-a-false-fl

EXCERPT
"Dr. Pieczenik said that the decision to launch the hoax now was made because Obama had reached a low with plummeting approval ratings and the fact that the birther issue was blowing up in his face."

"Dismissing the government's account of the assassination of Bin Laden as a "sick joke" on the American people, Pieczenik said, "They are so desperate to make Obama viable, to negate the fact that he may not have been born here, any questions about his background, any irregularities about his background, to make him look assertive&.to re-elect this president so the American public can be duped once again."

"Pieczenik's assertion that Bin Laden died almost ten years ago is echoed by numerous intelligence professionals as well as heads of state across the world. Bin Laden, "Was used in the same way that 9/11 was used to mobilize the emotions and feelings of the American people in order to go to a war that had to be justified. He was directly told by a prominent general that 9/11 was a stand down and a false flag operation, and he is prepared to go to a grand jury to reveal the general's name."

"They ran the attacks," said Pieczenik, naming Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Hadley, Elliott Abrams, and Condoleezza Rice amongst others as having been directly involved. It was called a stand down, a false flag operation in order to mobilize the American public under false pretenses"

[democracy5]

People like you are SUCH an embarrassment!

[evetsnameloc]

Everything Obama and his minions have told us about this operation has been a lie. Why should I believe this baloney about a tape measure? I'll bet they had a tape measure, all right, and when they measured the corpse, it was 5'9".

And I can't believe you're still running that phoney posed photo of the staff all absorbed over the "real-time" action when they have already admitted that there was no real-time action. Even Panetta said they had no idea what was going on for 20-25 minutes.

[enlightenu]

So why should you be believed?

[Honorplease]

You probably still believe the earth is flat, huh ??

[Danielmountain]

Laying down next to a corpse, to ascertain its height, isn't very scientific/accurate. But okay.