New Details on Bin Laden Killing: "No One Wanted Detainees"

From a riveting article in The New Yorker on the raid that resulted in Bin Laden's Killing:

A second SEAL stepped into the room and trained the infrared laser of his M4 on bin Laden’s chest. The Al Qaeda chief, who was wearing a tan shalwar kameez and a prayer cap on his head, froze; he was unarmed. “There was never any question of detaining or capturing him—it wasn’t a split-second decision. No one wanted detainees,” the special-operations officer told me. (The Administration maintains that had bin Laden immediately surrendered he could have been taken alive.) Nine years, seven months, and twenty days after September 11th, an American was a trigger pull from ending bin Laden’s life. The first round, a 5.56-mm. bullet, struck bin Laden in the chest. As he fell backward, the SEAL fired a second round into his head, just above his left eye. On his radio, he reported, “For God and country—Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo.” After a pause, he added, “Geronimo E.K.I.A.”—“enemy killed in action.”

My article in the WSJ on the legality of the killing is here. These new details might raise some questions about whether a surrender option truly existed.

Strasbourg Court Verdict Could Change Conduct of War by EU States?

In a significant expansion of the EU Convention on Human Rights, the Strasbourg court ruled recently that UK troops had to comply with the convention even though they were engaged in hostilities in Iraq. I haven't read the full judgment yet but this looks like something that could potentially change the conduct of hostilities in non-convention states, at least by EU countries. It might also have implications for anti-piracy operations by EU navies off the coast of Somalia. From the CNN report:
"following the removal from power of the Baath regime and until the accession of the Iraqi Interim Government, the United Kingdom (together with the United States) assumed in Iraq the exercise of some of the public powers normally to be exercised by a sovereign government.

"In particular, the United Kingdom assumed authority and responsibility for the maintenance of security in (southeastern) Iraq," the court said. "In those exceptional circumstances, a jurisdictional link existed between the United Kingdom and individuals killed in the course of security operations carried out by British soldiers during the period May 2003 to June 2004. Since the applicants' relatives were killed in the course of United Kingdom security operations during that period, the United Kingdom was required to carry out an investigation into their deaths."

The court only seems to be requiring an investigation. I assume that if the investigation found that the use of lethal force was justified, it might satisfy convention obligations?

US War Cost Since 9/11: $3.2 Trillion!

This MSNBC article references a Brown University study which found:

• ... the conservative numbers of war dead, in uniform and out, brings the total to 225,000.
• Millions of people have been displaced indefinitely and are living in grossly inadequate conditions. The current number of war refugees and displaced persons -- 7,800,000 -- is equivalent to all of the people of Connecticut and Kentucky fleeing their homes.
• ... Conservatively estimated, the war bills already paid and obligated to be paid are $3.2 trillion in constant dollars. A more reasonable estimate puts the number at nearly $4 trillion.

UK asks Sri Lanka to investigate War Crimes

The BBC reports that the UK is asking Sri Lanka to conduct an investigation into war crimes allegedly committed by its troops following a new documentary showing such crimes:
Britain's Channel 4 showed what it said was previously unseen footage of what purported to be extrajudicial killings of Tamils by the military.

Sri Lanka's defence ministry dismissed the videos as fabricated, saying they were intended to discredit the army.
The one-hour film, entitled Sri Lanka's Killing Fields, shows what appears to be executions of Tamil men, and video showing the corpses of naked women who appeared to have been sexually assaulted.

One video - which was said to have been taken by the military - shows graphic images of at least three bound prisoners, including one woman, being shot at close range.
In it, a soldier gives instructions to the others about how to kill the men.
"Is there no one with the balls to kill a terrorist?" he is heard saying, before telling his colleagues to aim at the prisoners' heads.

I've written previously on Huffpo about the Sri Lankan issue here and blogged previously here.

Was Guantanamo Worth It?

President Obama has received a fair bit of criticism from some of his most fervent supporters for reneging on a campaign promise to close down Guantanamo Bay. Is the new evidence - that vital information leading to the killing of Osama bin Laden was obtained by coercive interrogation at such detention centres - a strike for Guantanamo Bay? Will our reluctance to sanction such techniques against terrorist suspects abate? I'm not going to regurgitate tired old arguments about liberty and security or offer any easy answers. It is a messy decision whichever way one looks at it.

The AP has some good reporting about the intelligence gathering effort:
Officials say CIA interrogators in secret overseas prisons developed the first strands of information that ultimately led to the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Current and former U.S. officials say that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, provided the nom de guerre of one of bin Laden's most trusted aides. The CIA got similar information from Mohammed's successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi. Both were subjected to harsh interrogation tactics inside CIA prisons in Poland and Romania.

Here's the NYT:
Detainees at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had given the courier’s pseudonym to American interrogators and said that the man was a protégé of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

American intelligence officials said Sunday night that they finally learned the courier’s real name four years ago, but that it took another two years for them to learn the general region where he operated.
Still, it was not until August that they tracked him to the compound in Abbottabad, a medium-sized city about an hour’s drive north of Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.

And more:
... last July, Pakistanis working for the Central Intelligence Agency drove up behind a white Suzuki navigating the bustling streets near Peshawar, Pakistan, and wrote down the car’s license plate.

The man in the car was Bin Laden’s most trusted courier, and over the next month C.I.A. operatives would track him throughout central Pakistan. Ultimately, administration officials said, he led them to a sprawling compound at the end of a long dirt road and surrounded by tall security fences in a wealthy hamlet 35 miles from the Pakistani capital.

On a moonless night eight months later, 79 American commandos in four helicopters descended on the compound, the officials said. Shots rang out. A helicopter stalled and would not take off. Pakistani authorities, kept in the dark by their allies in Washington, scrambled forces as the American commandos rushed to finish their mission and leave before a confrontation. Of the five dead, one was a tall, bearded man with a bloodied face and a bullet in his head. A member of the Navy Seals snapped his picture with a camera and uploaded it to analysts who fed it into a facial recognition program.

Finally, here's the NYT obituary.