The New York Times piece on the Osama bin Laden operation mentions the final strike’s planner:
In February, Mr. Panetta called Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, commander of the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command, to C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va., to give him details about the compound and to begin planning a military strike.
Admiral McRaven, a veteran of the covert world who had written a book on American Special Operations, spent weeks working with the C.I.A. on the operation, and came up with three options: a helicopter assault using American commandos, a strike with B-2 bombers that would obliterate the compound, or a joint raid with Pakistani intelligence operatives who would be told about the mission hours before the launch.
As Spencer Ackerman of Wired notes, McRaven’s 1995 book, Spec Ops, lays out a theory of special operations:
“Brave men without good planning, preparation and leadership are cannon fodder in the face of defensive warfare.”
At the heart of all special operations is asymmetry. Operators attack “fortified positions,” confronting a superior force. It’s a recipe for being mowed down — unless you achieve what McRaven calls “relative superiority.” It’s a slippery concept, easy to identify after the fact and more difficult to isolate before or during a mission. Basically, it’s the point at which the commandos seize the advantage, leveraging their unique assets — “technology, training, intelligence, etc.” — to turn their opponents’ superior force into a disadvantage. It doesn’t guarantee victory; but not having it guarantees failure.
What’s individually necessary and jointly sufficient for success? According to McRaven: Keeping it simple. Keeping it secret. Rehearsing thoroughly. Surprising the enemy. Getting in and out quickly. And having a clear — and simple — purpose.
Counterintuitively, what’s needed for all of those to knit together into relative superiority is a small force. ”Because of their size,” McRaven writes, “it is difficult for large forces to develop a simple plan, keep their movements concealed, conduct detailed full-dress rehearsals (down to the individual soldier’s level), gain tactical surprise and speed on target, and motivate all the soldiers in the unit to a single tactical goal.” No wonder insurgents and special operators understand each other.
The longer the attack takes, the more it risks failing.
McRaven’s book collects case studies of special operations, mostly from WWII, but two from the post-war era, including the Israelis’ 1976 liberation of hostages on board a hijacked Air France flight in Entebbe, Uganda:
Israel had to secretly insert commandos, from the air, into a guarded airport terminal packed with civilians to neutralize ten (it turned out to be seven) terrorists, after crossing an airfield peppered with untrustworthy Ugandan sentries. The famed Sayeret Matkal rehearsed tirelessly for 18 hours, reduced the number of men on the mission, and relied on freed hostages for an understanding of where the terrorists were. When the operation occurred, Israeli commandos darted “from room to room in search of terrorists,” despite the mortal wounding of their commander, Lt. Col. Jonathan Netanyahu. While three hostages died, the Israelis killed the terrorists, several Ugandan guards and extracted the remaining passengers onto C-130s in under two hours.
You can practically hear McRaven preparing for Abbottabad in his book’s praise for Entebbe. “During the execution phase, the Israelis gained surprise by using boldness and deception to momentarily confuse the Ugandans, and by moving quickly on the target, they were able to secure the hostages within three minutes of landing at Entebbe,” McRaven writes. “Throughout the three phases, the purpose of the operation was emphasized again and again, and it meant not only the rescue of the hostages, but the honor and respect of the state of Israel.”
Compare that with Abbottabad. Restoring the honor of a country vexed by a terrorist who’d escaped its grasp a decade earlier? Check. A simple plan with a clear purpose? Check — kill or capture bin Laden. Secrecy? Most of the U.S. government didn’t even know, let alone the Pakistanis. Thorough rehearsal? At Bagram Air Field, the SEALs practiced on a model of the compound they built. Surprise? Most definitely. Speed? The whole thing was over in 40 minutes. No wonder: McRaven designed the plan.
40 minute operation, out of which the central 25 minutes of video have gone missing. The only pictures released so far show a few dead guys dressed like waiters and no guns. Hope the exciting details show up in the next book.