In a separate account of the raid that was published last month, one member of the Navy team, Matt Bissonnette, wrote that the SEALS climbed a stairway inside the compound and opened fire when bin Laden poked his head around a doorway. Bissonnette wrote that bin Laden's hands were concealed and the SEALS presumed he was armed, so they shot him.
Bowden's extensive access to top figures, including the president and high-ranking officials in the Pentagon and CIA, may revive criticism from Republicans that the White House allegedly leaks about the raid to burnish its foreign policy record during an election year.
Bowden, known for the book 'Black Hawk Down' about a 1993 U.S. military operation in Somalia, details how the White House planned the mission and explains that the specific American team was chosen because it had 'already successfully conducted about a dozen secret missions inside Pakistan.'
The recounting of the raid matches most previous versions. But Bowden also offers new insights in what sounds like the first-person perspective of the officer who commanded it on the ground, Admiral Bill McRaven. Scott Manning, a spokesman for the publisher, says 'McRaven is not identified as a source in the book.'
McRaven was able to monitor all Pakistani communications during the raid from his command post at a base in Afghanistan, according to Bowden.
The account shows that Pakistani authorities were unaware of the raid as it happened, giving the Americans breathing room to fly in a backup helicopter to replace the one that had crashed while depositing the first batch of SEALs in the compound.
After McRaven told then-CIA director Leon Panetta he had a 'Geronimo' call -- the radio code that meant the SEALs had found bin Laden -- the admiral realized he had not asked whether bin Laden was dead or had been captured.
McRaven checked again with the SEALs on the ground before relaying that bin Laden had likely been killed. But McRaven cautioned Panetta to 'manage his expectations' until they had more definitive proof, by comparing his photographs with the dead man.
Later, McRaven told the president that he felt sure that they killed bin Laden but said the military needed to complete DNA analysis to be certain, Bowden writes.
The book's publication may complicate the Pentagon's attempts to punish Bissonnette for his book. Writing under the pseudonym Mark Owen, Bissonnette published 'No Easy Day' without submitting it for a security review by the Pentagon. Bowden was under no such requirement to have the book vetted because he was not a government or military employee.
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