That’s almost what happened. (But they do ride with a large posse that helps with more than the gunfights. ©2020 Verizon Media. The big breakthrough in the hunt for bin Laden was the CIA’s identification of Sheikh Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, the al-Qaeda leader’s courier, who lived with him in the compound in Abbottabad. That impression is false. Latest advice on travel and quarantine as Mykonos is given the green light, Half-term travel in Tier 2 London: Everything you need to know about escaping lockdown, Can I travel between tiers? She gathers up a posse, heads out, and kills the bad guy. The CIA ended up pulling him from the country. Sometimes circumstances make it hard or impossible for you to vote on Election Day. by As we have said before, the truth is that multiple streams of intelligence led CIA analysts to conclude that Bin Ladin was hiding in Abbottabad. This search leads to the discovery of his compound in Pakistan and the military raid that resulted in bin Laden's death on May 2, 2011. We cannot allow a Hollywood film to cloud our memory of them. This may make for more compelling entertainment, but it does not reflect the facts. The filmmakers attributed the actions of our entire Agency—and the broader Intelligence Community—to just a few individuals. What I want you to know is that Zero Dark Thirty is a dramatization, not a realistic portrayal of the facts. What’s more, when the terrorist leader was finally tracked down, in his bedroom on the third floor of the building, there was no whispered calling out of his name – “Osama, Osama” – to lure him into the open, as happens in the film. Today is National Voter Registration Day! “It has saved lives.” Bill Harlow, a fellow CIA member, denies that Brennan had anything to do with the techniques used during 2002-2003. Debra Saunders,San Francisco Chronicle: "Zero Dark Thirty depicts an al-Qaeda detainee who, after being waterboarded, gives up the first information about a courier to Osama bin Laden. Polling hours on Election Day: Varies by state/locality. Jessica Chastain portrays the CIA analyst Maya in the new movie "Zero Dark Thirty." The whole story the film tells, both in terms of the time scale and the type of human effort it depicts, is likely to create some important misconceptions for the public about how our national security system really works. Nevertheless, the idea was the same: to obtain DNA from bin Laden’s children, who were living with him in Abbottabad, and compare it with samples from his sister who died in Boston in 2010. You make the best choices you can, about very serious matters, with imperfect information. Through it all, I want you to remember that Zero Dark Thirty is not a documentary. No one would ever yell “Breacher!” when calling for someone to blow down a door, he said - you would just put your fist to your helmet; the recognised signal for a Seal with explosive packets to get to work. You can cancel anytime. I could relate to Maya as a mid-level officer, being asked to "backbench" at a briefing—you’re briefing the guy who has to brief the guy—while she knows it’s her analysis that brought everyone together in the room. Tina Daunt The success of the May 1st 2011 operation was a team effort—and a very large team at that. (But the movie) consists of scenes of an exhausted, bloodied al-Qaeda detainee ... who is strung to the ceiling with ropes, beaten, forced to wear a dog collar while crawling around attached to a leash ... forced to endure crude waterboardings, and locked into a coffin-like wooden crate. Tap here to turn on desktop notifications to get the news sent straight to you. Its portrayal of torture by the CIA and the existence-or-not of its central character, Maya (played by Jessica Chastain), have been widely discussed. All rights reserved. Zero Dark Thirty ist ein US-amerikanischer Action-Thriller aus dem Jahr 2012. After the attacks, I and other officers transferred from other departments. This 10-year hunt involved hundreds of people with several people at the core.) CIA interacted with the filmmakers through our Office of Public Affairs but, as is true with any entertainment project with which we interact, we do not control the final product. First, the hunt for Usama Bin Ladin was a decade-long effort that depended on the selfless commitment of hundreds of officers. whose spare-tire cover was emblazoned with an image of a white rhino” and was eventually tracked down to the compound where Bin Laden was hiding. After she’s killed, a news report provides voiceover to the scene, mentioning that among the CIA employees killed in the attack was a mother of three. One cameo in ZD30, overlooked by many, is that of a German Shepherd who accompanies Seal Team 6 on the Abbottabad raid. Sign up for membership to become a founding member and help shape HuffPost's next chapter, Register to vote and apply for an absentee ballot today. Because she's not actually Clint Eastwood, she cries a little. We've got the go-it-alone gunslinger, Maya, whose past is murky and future is vague. But in doing so, the film takes significant artistic license, while portraying itself as being historically accurate. Since then, however, it has had two unfortunate ramifications: Shakil Afridi, a doctor who helped the CIA set up the scheme, has been jailed by a Pakistani court for 33 years for treason; and charity workers operating genuine vaccination programmes have been killed by militants who now suspect such workers to be American spies. And not all of the pieces fit in the puzzle.”. 1 at the box office. Many were just joining the agency, like Maya at the movie’s beginning. Silhouette of a man by iStockphoto. ", Zero Dark Thirty, he wrote, “takes significant artistic license, while portraying itself as being historically accurate.”. ‘The Shooter’, however, had some quibbles. In his interview this week with ‘The Shooter’ – the US Navy Seal who killed Osama bin Laden – the American journalist Phil Bronstein described a trip to the cinema he and the unnamed man took to watch Zero Dark Thirty. The stark misconception that really stood out was the lack of humanity in the portrayal of one character, who appears based on the late Jennifer Matthews, a CIA officer killed in a suicide bombing in Khost, Afghanistan. How to honor, or desecrate, the body of a fallen foe such as Osama bin Laden often leaves the victor fearful of creating a shrine where the unslain gain succor. We should be asking questions like, “What should our expectation be of our national security apparatus, especially in terms of how it conducts itself in a time of war?” Or, “How might we re-imagine or rebuild our counter-terrorism strategy so that it better balances individual rights and reasonable precautions moving forward?”. The interrogation techniques were described as “unauthorised, improvised, inhumane and undocumented”. The film, which tells the story of the hunt for and eventual assassination of the al-Qaeda leader in Abbottabad, Pakistan, claims its action is ‘based on firsthand accounts of actual events’. And, importantly, whether enhanced interrogation techniques were the only timely and effective way to obtain information from those detainees, as the film suggests, is a matter of debate that cannot and never will be definitively resolved. Historical fiction has some connection with real events. They have been used to brainstorm ways to attack America, in order to improve the country’s security, and they consult a wide and eclectic range of people. "When Osama went down, it was chaos, people screaming. As part of their efforts to confirm bin Laden was in the compound, the CIA is shown in the film setting up a fake polio vaccination scheme in Abbottabad. First, the hunt for Usama Bin Ladin was a decade-long effort that depended on the selfless commitment of hundreds of officers. The reality of the profession is long hours of menial work that don't often fit into standard narratives. Jessica (Jennifer Ehle) – Jennifer Lynne Matthews. And you'll never see this message again. I watch Homeland. But Maya has some sympathy for Bradley when his name is made public and he’s forced to leave Pakistan. The group of intelligence officers I worked with was not a homogenous whole. (PHOTO: SONY PICTURES). Banks, who has kept a low profile since leaving Pakistan, is now facing possible arrest by Pakistani police. Third, the film takes considerable liberties in its depiction of CIA personnel and their actions, including some who died while serving our country. I get that Hollywood needs to sell tickets, but it’s not accurate enough to resonate with my experiences as a CIA analyst and later, a targeting officer in the clandestine service. The movie also alludes to arguments over priorities for CTC—that there were, over time, things more important than finding bin Laden—but presents them as distractions for Maya. Later in the film, we witness a cross-examination at a ‘black site’ in Gdansk and then another at the Bagram Air Force base, in Afghanistan. In one scene he is told that his intelligence has been subjected to “Red Cell” analysis. As surprising as it sounds, this is true, at least according to a report by the Washington Post in March last year: the director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center (CTC), and the leader of the hunt for bin Laden, really has converted to Islam. Described by former intelligence officials as “one of the CIA’s top experts on al-Qaeda”, Matthews was in charge of Chapman, a base near the eastern Afghan city of Khost. Through it all, I want you to remember that Zero Dark Thirty is not a documentary. Anticipating that Panetta would not be impressed with the how he was going to look on screen, Gandolfini has said, “I sent a note to Leon saying, ‘I’m very sorry about everything. And, importantly, whether enhanced interrogation techniques were the only timely and effective way to obtain information from those detainees, as the film suggests, is a matter of debate that cannot and never will be definitively resolved. Jessica watches his beaten up car drive to the gates and orders the guards to let him through, believing he’s about to give her important intelligence about an al-Qaeda leader. The acting CIA director's intervention is bound to add weight to the lawmakers' demand, since Morell went on to remind agency employees that torture did not play a role in the locating and killing of the Al Qaeda kingpin. Joseph Bradley (Kyle Chandler) – Jonathan Banks. Does it give an accurate picture of how the CIA anti-terrorism efforts really work? Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. The success of the May 1st 2011 operation was a team effort—and a very large team at that. Just as in the film, “Kuwaiti drove a white S.U.V. On Dec. 21, Morell posted a message on the CIA’s public website addressing the film's depiction of interrogation methods used during the course of the successful manhunt for Osama Bin Laden, writing that "the film takes significant artistic license, while portraying itself as being historically accurate. That CIA Counterterrorism chief we see practicing a Muslim prayer in his office—The Wolf, as he is named in the movie—is likely based on a man known by his cover name “Roger.” Roger, as described in a Washington Post profile, is a “collection of contradictions”—among them his conversion to Islam despite overseeing the death of Islamist militants.