Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh contends a Pakistani report on the 2011 U.S. Navy Seals raid that ended with the killing of 9/11 terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden is "one big lie."
"Nothing's been done about that story. It's one big lie, not one word of it is true," Hersh said in remarks
published in The Guardian.
Hersh is writing a book about national security, and has devoted a chapter to the bin Laden killing, The Guardian reported.
He said the report by an independent Pakistani commission about life in the Abbottabad compound in which bin Laden was holed up would not stand up to scrutiny.
"The Pakistanis put out a report; don't get me going on it," he said. "Let's put it this way, it was done with considerable American input. It's a bull**** report."
The Abbottabad Commission's 336-page report holds both politicians and the military responsible for "gross incompetence" leading to "collective failures" that allowed bin Laden to escape detection,
Al Jazeera reported in July.
Hersh also lashed into the Obama administration and the U.S. media.
"It's pathetic. They are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama]," Hersh said.
"It used to be when you were in a situation when something very dramatic happened, the president and the minions around the president had control of the narrative, you would pretty much know they would do the best they could to tell the story straight," he said.
"Now that doesn't happen anymore. Now they take advantage of something like that, and they work out how to re-elect the president."
A contributor to The New Yorker magazine,
Hersh's awards for investigative journalism have included a Pulitzer Prize, five George Polk Awards and two National Magazine Awards.
Related post:
Document: Pakistan's Bin Laden Dossier
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.