Filmmakers had access to Osama bin Laden intelligence, documents show

Jim Kouri
National Law Enforcement Examiner
5/23/2012

A Washington, DC-based group that investigates, exposes, and combats government corruption at the highest levels, surprised members of the news industry by obtaining documents that one source said “were almost as hard to get from the Obama administration as buying a winning lottery ticket at the local grocery store.”

What is revealed in these records is disturbing, even shocking, say a number of counterterrorism and political experts who spoke with the Law Enforcement Examiner.

The noted — and feared by a number of politicos — public-interest organization, Judicial Watch, reported on May 21 that its officials obtained records from the U.S. Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency regarding meetings and communications between Obama-run federal agencies and veteran filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow

…According to the newly obtained records, the Obama Defense Department granted Bigelow and her screenwriter Mark Boal access to a “planner, Operator and Commander of SEAL Team Six,” the special forces unit that killed the world’s most famous and most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden, in a daring covert operation inside Pakistan on May 1, 2011.

According to Judicial Watch officials, the Obama administration wished to assist Bigelow in her preparations for her upcoming feature film.

One document — which sets the tone of the communications between officials and filmmakers — notes: The talking points called the raid “a ‘Gutsy Decision’ by the POTUS [Obama],” adding that “WH (White House) involvement was critical.”   

The records — obtained through a court order in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed on January 21, 2012, by Judicial Watch — include 153 pages of records from the DOD and 113 pages of records from the CIA (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Defense (No. 1:12-cv-00049))…

…The July 14, 2011, meeting transcript also reveals that the DOD provided the filmmakers with the identity of a “planner, SEAL Team 6 Operator and Commander.”  (The name is blacked out in the document.)  In proposing the arrangement, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers said: “The only thing we ask is that you not reveal his name in any way as a consultant because . . . he shouldn’t be talking out of school.” Vickers went on to say during the meeting at the Pentagon: “This at least, this gives him one step removed and he knows what he can and can’t say, but this way at least he can be as open as he can with you and it ought to meet your needs.” Boal later responds, “You delivered.”…

The complete article is at Law Enforcement Examiner.

RelatedDocuments: Obama Administration Gave Some Pretty Extraordinary Information And Access To Bin Laden Raid Filmmakers

…Related(ish): Pakistani doctor who helped CIA try to ID bin Laden convicted of treason and sentence to over 30 years in jail. [emphasis CAJ]

It’s not clear if the US leaked this guys name or his role in the operation but Leon Panneta, Director of the CIA at the time of the raid, confirmed the doctor’s role in the operation to the entire world.

Read the entire article at Ace of Spades HQ.

UpdateRep. Peter King on bin Laden Movie’s Ties to White House: ‘Unprecedented … Potentially Dangerous’

Rep. Peter King has been the most vocal politician regarding collaboration charges against the White House in connection to the upcoming film about the death of Osama bin Laden. Now, we’re learning King had every right to be worried

…”Filmmakers Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal may have set out to tell a blockbuster, election-year story about one of the most highly classified operations in American history, but through these emails they’ve ended up telling a damning story of extremely close, unprecedented, and potentially dangerous collaboration with top officials at the CIA, DoD, and the White House and a top Democratic lobbying firm.”…

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