Thursday, February 21, 2013

Pentagon Investigating SEAL Who Shot bin Laden

February 21, 2013

The Pentagon has launched an inquiry to see whether the recent account of the Osama bin Laden raid, given by the Navy SEAL who reportedly killed the al Qaeda leader in May 2011, included classified or sensitive information about the strike.

DOD officials "are taking a look" at the details about the raid, known as Operation Neptune Spear, included in a recent profile on the SEAL published in Esquire magazine in February, DOD spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Warren told reporters Tuesday.

Warren would not comment on which DOD office was leading the inquiry or whether the SEAL, referred to only as "the Shooter" in the article, is now the subject of an official investigation by the department's inspector general's office.

"This is something we have been looking at and will continue to look at" as more details emerge from the inquiry, Warren said during a press briefing at the Pentagon.

The article reportedly included a number of specific details about the U.S special operations raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that ended with the terrorist chieftain's death.

Aside from the Abbottabad raid, DOD officials are also looking into claims made by the SEAL that he was stripped of his healthcare and other post-retirement military benefits when he left the Navy shortly after the bin Laden operation.

"I left SEALs on Friday," the shooter said. "My healthcare for me and my family stopped at midnight Friday night. I asked if there was some transition from my Tricare to Blue Cross Blue Shield. They said no. You're out of the service, your coverage is over. Thanks for your sixteen years. Go f**k yourself."

The shooter now reportedly has been forced to purchase insurance on the individual market for nearly $500 a month, but it doesn't cover combat-related treatments such as weekly visits to a chiropractor.

Warren noted the SEAL did make the conscious decision to leave the service four years short of the 20-year mark, which made him ineligible for Navy pension and associated benefits.

That said, the SEAL still would be eligible for a number of military assistance programs, despite not staying in the service long enough to receive full retirement benefits, according to Warren.

The preliminary inquiry into the shooter's profile in Esquire comes as DOD continues its investigation into former SEAL Mark Bissonnette, whose book "No Easy Day" gave the unauthorized blow-by-blow telling of the daring raid on bin Laden's Abbottabad compound.

DOD launched its investigation into Bissonnette, one of the Navy SEALs on the raid, amid claims the book included classified information regarding the bin Laden raid and other clandestine missions in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

The Hill

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