Peter Bergen on 'Manhunt' for Osama bin Laden

'Man Hunt' by Peter L. Bergen
Book cover courtesy of publisher

The killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011 was the culmination of a 10-year search for the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Peter Bergen's new book "Manhunt" documents that search and the extraordinary effort to determine Bin Laden's whereabouts.

From The New York Times review:

Bin Laden's last words, according to Mr. Bergen, were to his youngest wife, Amal: "Don't turn on the light." It was a pointless admonition, Mr. Bergen adds, since "someone -- it is still not clear exactly who -- had taken the sensible precaution of turning off the electricity feeding the neighborhood, thus giving the SEALs a large advantage on that moonless night."

As Mr. Bergen tells it, the Qaeda leader "just waited in the dark in silence for about 15 minutes, seemingly mentally paralyzed as the Americans stormed his last refuge"; when he opened a metal gate blocking access to his room and poked his head out to see what the commotion was downstairs, he "made the fatal error of not locking this gate behind him" when he retreated, allowing the SEALs to run past it and into his bedroom.

Peter Bergen, director of the national security studies program at the New America Foundation and CNN national security analyst, will join The Daily Circuit Tuesday to discuss his book.

VIDEO: Bergen on 'Manhunt'

VIDEO: Bergen's 1997 interview with Bin Laden

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