Countdown bin Laden

by Chris Wallace

First published 2021

Chris Wallace reconstructs the final eight months of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, beginning when three CIA officers approached Director Leon Panetta with news about a fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The author traces how intelligence analysts tracked an Al Qaeda courier to what appeared to be more than an ordinary house. Wallace documents the strategic planning sessions, military preparations, and intelligence operations that culminated in the SEAL Team Six raid. He conducted extensive interviews with key decision makers including Admiral William McRaven, Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, and Leon Panetta. The book also features accounts from two SEAL Team Six members who participated in the mission, including the operator who killed bin Laden. Wallace incorporates perspectives from 9/11 families and military families affected by the operation. Published twenty years after the September 11 attacks, this account provides new details about the operation that brought justice for the deadliest terrorist attack in American history.

Genres: biography, history, non-fiction, 21st-century, military-history, american-history

Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, thought-provoking

Tropes: investigative-journalism, real-events

Setting: Abbottabad, Pakistan, United States

Period: 2011, September 11

368 pages · Hardcover · Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster

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