Bin Laden Shooter Addresses Who’s Right on The Money
Award-Winning Journalist Says O’Neill, U.S. Government Lied.
FOX News host Melissa Francis recently invited former Navy SEAL Rob O'Neill to appear on her show Money…not to talk investments or the economy, but to take stock of cheap shots made against Rob, his fellow SEALs and the U.S. government. The accusation: that everyone involved lied about how the May 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan actually went down. The source? Reporter Seymour Hersh.
Hersh might be a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, but O'Neill has little regard for his investigative reporting skills, as is clear from his conversation with Francis.
Highlights of their exchange on Money:
Francis: "Journalist Seymour Hersh claims Pakistan was in control of the entire operation, but bin Laden's killer calls the whole reporting 'insulting'."
O'Neill: "My initial response…I thought it was a joke. Just because a reporter wants to become relevant again and listens to one unnamed Pakistani source, whereas every single American involved to the highest level has said pretty much the same story."
Francis: "The only part of it that sort of struck a note of some truth was this idea that Pakistan sold him (bin Laden) out. Is there any chance they had some form of involvement?"
O'Neill: "I think they knew he was there. Someone in the ISI Pakistani intelligence community knew he was there, but there was no way they sold him out. They don't have an interest in assisting America too much."
Francis: "Were any Pakistanis with you? In the copter, on the ground?"
“A guy that's going to bring you into a building where you've never been? I'm assuming he's going to blow us up, we're walking into an ambush.”
O'Neill: "Absolutely not. We maxed out the weight we could bring as far as people, weapons, bombs, sledgehammers. If we have room, we're going to bring another operator, not an intelligence officer…certainly not a Pakistani intelligence officer. A guy that's going to bring you into a building where you've never been? I'm assuming he's going to blow us up, we're walking into an ambush."
Francis: "How does it make you feel having someone out there telling this story?"
O'Neill: "I hear conspiracy theories all the time. The thing that kind of bothers me is American media's latching onto this because they too want a sense of relevance."
He adds that if there were any credibility to Seymour's story…
O'Neill: "There would be been a leak. There wasn't. Some people would rather be first than be right."