15 November 2011

SOCOM Speaks Out About SEAL Book

When the SpecOps community breaks their silence to disavow your book, you gotta know you're waaaaay off base.

The U.S. military is denouncing a former Navy SEAL's book that claims to describe the "real" version of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
"It's just not true," U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Col. Tim Nye said. "It's not how it happened."
Laden with conspiracy theories and attacks on the Obama White House, Chuck Pfarrer's "SEAL Target Geronimo" claims an alternative version of the raid in which the SEAL team shot bin Laden within 90 seconds of arriving at the Pakistan compound where the al-Qaida mastermind was holed up.
Pfarrer claims the White House issued a fictional and damaging account of the raid that made the SEALs looks inept. He says President Barack Obama's speedy acknowledgement of the raid was a craven political move that rendered much of the intelligence gathered on the raid useless.
Pfarrer's account broke into Amazon's top 20 book sales list last week, and Pfarrer has appeared on Fox News, CNN and in other venues to promote it.
"I have truth on my side," Pfarrer said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I spoke to the guys on the ground and in the secondary bird," he said, referring to the aircraft full of a second SEAL team that was there to rescue the first if it came under attack so far inside Pakistan's borders.
"This is a fabrication," Nye countered, issuing an on-the-record denial on behalf of Navy SEAL Adm. Bill McRaven, who took command of all special operations this summer.
In his previous role, McRaven executed the raid in May as head of the military's elite Joint Special Operations Command. Nye said McRaven was concerned the book would lead Americans to doubt the administration's version of events. He also disputed Pfarrer's portrayal of friction between the CIA and the military special operations forces who carried out the raid.
"We have never come forward and gone after an author and say that is a lie," Nye said. "That tells you how far off the mark we believe this book is."

And when you can't get basic, verifiable facts right, as pointed out later in the article (Al-Zawarhi was killed by an F16 strike, not a UAV), then how is anyone supposed to believe the things they can't fact-check behind you?

By: Brant

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