Gall, who spent 12 years as the Times correspondent in Afghanistan, wrote that she’d been told by a ‘Pakistani official’ that Pasha had known before the raid that bin Laden was in Abbottabad. The evidence for all this is Hersh's conversations with two people: Asad Durrani, who ran Pakistan's military intelligence service from 1990 to 1992, and "a retired senior intelligence official who was knowledgeable about the initial intelligence about bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad." In August 2010 a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer approached Jonathan Bank, then the CIA’s station chief at the US embassy in Islamabad. And, troublingly, they were often sourced to perhaps one or two anonymous "consultants" or "former officials" who were said to "have knowledge" of high-level discussions. Beyond that, Hersh's proof is that he finds the official story of the Osama bin Laden raid to be unconvincing. The president’s position was emphatic: “Don’t talk to me about this any more unless you have proof that it really is bin Laden.”’ The immediate goal of the CIA leadership and the Joint Special Operations Command was to get Obama’s support. What Seymour Hersh says really happened to Osama bin Laden 
 
 The truth, Hersh says, is that Pakistani intelligence services captured bin Laden in 2006 and kept him locked up with support from Saudi Arabia, using him as leverage against al-Qaeda. We also did a little blackmail. They do see what they’re doing — and this is not an atypical attitude among some military — it’s a crusade, literally. But the year before the raid, a Pakistani journalist publicly named Bank (many suspect, and Hersh agrees, that this was done at Pakistani intelligence's behest), thus imperiling his life, forcing him to flee the country and sparking a diplomatic incident that set back US-Pakistan relations. The New York Times reported that there was ‘strong suspicion’ the ISI had played a role in leaking Bank’s name to Khan. Hersh says this entire monthslong incident was staged, a "cover in case their co-operation with the Americans in getting rid of bin Laden became known." Not exactly a key player in this drama, and anonymous at that. "helping Obama boost US-Pakistan relations seems like an unusual hobby for an al-Qaeda leader" 
 
 If Pakistan's goal is increased US aid, why do something that will virtually force the US to cut aid, as it indeed did? By the same token, why would the US cut a secret deal with Pakistan to allow that country a "freer hand" in Afghanistan — essentially surrendering a yearslong effort to reduce Pakistani influence there — rather than just taking out bin Laden without Pakistan's permission? In 2010, Pakistan agreed to sell bin Laden to the US for increased military aid and a "freer hand in Afghanistan." He knew at the eleventh hour of his career not to be a party to this nonsense. But State, the agency and the Pentagon had bought in on the cover story. Two sources, neither with direct knowledge, told Hersh that American special forces had flown the Iranians all the way to Nevada to train at a base there. And he points out that in the first days after the raid, the administration released details that cast bin Laden in a negative light — saying he tried to use one of his wives as a shield, for example — that it later walked back. If Hersh still has his once-famous connections in the American intelligence world, they do not show up here. Every single thing they have created turns out not to be true. The intelligence "treasure trove" was thus a fabrication, cooked up by the CIA after the raid to back up the American-Pakistani conspiracy. Rather than kill him or hand him over discreetly, Hersh says the Pakistanis insisted on staging an elaborate American "raid" with Pakistani support. The story is riven with internal contradictions and inconsistencies. Some of the problems with Hersh's history of Abbottabad 
 
 Perhaps the most concerning problem with Hersh's story is not the sourcing but rather the internal contradictions in the narrative he constructs. According to Hersh's 10,000-word story in the London Review of Books, the official history of bin Laden's death — in which the US tracked him to a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan; killed him in a secret raid that infuriated Pakistan; and then buried him at sea — is a lie. In a reconstruction of the bin Laden operation for Vanity Fair, Mark Bowden, who spoke to many senior administration officials, wrote that bin Laden’s body was cleaned and photographed at Jalalabad. The remains, including his head, which had only a few bullet holes in it, were thrown into a body bag and, during the helicopter flight back to Jalalabad, some body parts were tossed out over the Hindu Kush mountains – or so the Seals claimed. See also, for example, the intelligence material that the US brought back from bin Laden's compound and then displayed to the world. Or why not put him in a hut somewhere in Waziristan, blow it up with an F-16, pretend it was a US drone strike, and tell the Americans to go collect the body? There never was a plan, initially, to take the body to sea, and no burial of bin Laden at sea took place.’ The retired official said that if the Seals’ first accounts are to be believed, there wouldn’t have been much left of bin Laden to put into the sea in any case.
– No sooner had Seymour Hersh's Osama bin Laden bombshell dropped than critics were rushing in to pick apart his 10,000-word report, the stuff of instant controversy. But whereas Hersh may have once been a journalistic heavyweight, writes Max Fisher at Vox, his latest "story simply does not hold up to scrutiny—and, sadly, is in line with Hersh's recent turn ... into unsubstantiated conspiracy theories." Among the complaints, from Fisher and others: Sourcing: One source is "a retired senior intelligence official who was knowledgeable about the initial intelligence about bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad." "Read that line again," writes Fisher. "Not exactly a key player, and anonymous at that," yet his "word is treated as gospel." Inconsistencies: Hersh's claim that bin Laden was a Pakistani prisoner for years invalidates the trove of intel the US brought back from Abbottabad—which none other than Ayman al-Zawahri has admitted was real. So Hersh is wrong, writes one expert, or "Zawahiri is helping Obama forge evidence to boost US-Pakistan relations, which seems like an unusual hobby for an [al-Qaeda] leader." The sheer scope: Hersh "produces no supporting documents or proof" yet "accuses hundreds of people across three governments of staging a massive international hoax that has gone on for years" and "when facts seem to squarely contradict his claims, his answer is that this only goes to show how deep the rabbit hole goes." The blowback: The earlier pieces that made Hersh's name "were all quickly confirmed by dozens of independent reports and mountains of physical proof. That's how such exposés typically work: the first glint of sunshine brings a rush of attention." His later pieces "have tended to remain all alone in their claims, and at times have been debunked." Sample intel reaction: "Every sentence I was reading was wrong," former acting CIA director Mike Morell told CBS This Morning, per Mediaite. "The source that Hersh talked to has no idea what he’s talking about. The Pakistanis did not know … The Pakistanis were furious with us. The president sent me to Pakistan to start smoothing things over." Maybe Hersh is right, concludes Fisher, and "there really is a vast shadow world of complex and diabolical conspiracies." Or perhaps, he says, "there's a simpler explanation." Click for Fisher's full column, or Hersh's report.