Mark Bowden - The Finish The Killing of Osama bin Laden [V6] Una

Mark Bowden - The Finish: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden

Unabridged, V6, Read by James Lurie


http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-finish-mark-bowden/1111526267?ean=9780802121523

Overview
From Mark Bowden, the preeminent chronicler of our military and special forces, comes The Finish, a gripping account of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. With access to key sources, Bowden takes us inside the rooms where decisions were made and on the ground where the action unfolded.
After masterminding the attacks of September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden managed to vanish. Over the next ten years, as Bowden shows, America found that its war with al QaedaΓÇöa scattered group of individuals who were almost impossible to trackΓÇödemanded an innovative approach. Step by step, Bowden describes the development of a new tactical strategy to fight this warΓÇöthe fusion of intel from various agencies and on-the-ground special ops. After thousands of special forces missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the right weapon to go after bin Laden had finally evolved. By Spring 2011, intelligence pointed to a compound in Abbottabad; it was estimated that there was a 50/50 chance that Osama was there. Bowden shows how three strategies were mooted: a drone strike, a precision bombing, or an assault by Navy SEALs. In the end, the President had to make the final decision. It was time for the finish.

Publishers Weekly
Bestselling author Bowden (Black Hawk Down) follows the long and often cold trail from 9/11 to a compound in Abbottabad, Paki-stan, where "a hand-picked... Dream Team" of U.S. Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden, in this sketchy and surprisingly vapid account. Relying on interviews with President Barack Obama and many of the national security officials directly involved in the planning of the mission, Bowden shows how "a sophisticated targeting engine" that included supercomputers and surveillance drones tracked down the elusive terrorist mastermind beginning with a single name. Bowden did not interview any of the SEAL team members on the raid, and the action takes place mostly in comfortable government offices far from the tip of the spear. Despite silence from the SEALs, the omniscient author knows what was on their minds ("The one thing... always in their thoughts was danger...") and in their hearts (they "were veterans of many raids, hardened to violence and death"). The hero of Bowden's narrative seems to be Obama, who risked his presidency on the type of uncertain raid that had doomed Jimmy Carter. Readers expecting a detailed, dramatic account of the raid on the Abbottabad compound will be disappointed.

Kirkus Reviews
A best-selling author explains the 10-year effort to find, fix and finish the world's most-wanted terrorist Bowden (Worm: The First Digital World War, 2011, etc.) devotes a taut chapter to the attack on Osama bin Laden, and he lavishly credits the courage and professionalism of the military men at the finish. But more than anything, he pays tribute and attention to "the effort and patience and will" of America's intelligence network and counterterrorism professionals, to the often-overlooked virtues of a bureaucracy endlessly grinding away to connect the dots of information that would lead to the sheik's lair. An effective opening chapter focuses on the day the Twin Towers fell and reminds us of the many then-obscure individuals who would rise to levels of immense power and responsibility during the long decade it took to kill bin Laden. Throughout those 10 years, through changes of administrations, the U.S. spent its time figuring out "exactly how to fight back" against an elusive, stateless enemy, employing tools old (on-the-ground human intelligence), new (supercomputers, drones) and improved (special ops) to eliminate al-Qaida's mastermind. As he efficiently tracks America's progress in this exquisitely difficult task, Bowden interleaves chapters depicting bin Laden's increasing isolation and frustration in Pakistan. He also explodes a few myths surrounding the raid itself: the president's "gutsy call" in fact had the near-unanimous support of his top advisers; there was no firefight at the compound; bin Laden was not in fact living in luxury, nor was he in effective control of his own organization; at least some of the information that led to his capture almost surely derived from torture or coercive interrogation. A superb storyteller, Bowden captures the tense drama accompanying the final months of the bin Laden hunt, even as he underscores the quiet, essential work of years.