Safe House: no hawkers

The Obama bin Laden Raid

Correction: The Osama bin Laden Raid (White House ed)

Now we know everything about the famous raid. But do we know everything?!!! Here's a different take on this mammoth story (please swallow after reading):

 Bin Laden was traced to the compound in Abbottabad in August last year. Well not exactly traced but everything pointed to it. No one had actually seen the bloke reading the New York Times in his backyard but if you're in the intelligence business which of course I am, a few leads are as good as "a smackeroonie we've gotim" situation". So the CIA boys set up a safe house. WHAT!!! A CIA safe house in charming Abbottabad?! Perhaps with "No Hawkers, no nosey Pakistanis and definitely no snoopers from the ISI [Pakistan's naughty-boys Taleban-loving intelligence service] notices on the front door. What did they do for food I wonder. Had to go down the local super for burgers and stuff, a dead giveaway. Anyway, here we have smart-looking Ivy League graduates sitting it out with their dark glasses peering through the window and seeing, well seeing what? Apparently not much. The safe house must have been so far away from The Compound that it was... well safe from being spotted by anyone. I guess that's why it was called a safe house. So on Day One, through fancy binoculars, they spotted this bloke pacing up and down in the inner courtyard of The Compound. He was about 6ft 4ins, longish beard though not as long as the one in the usual bin Laden photos, a bit stooped and head down, always looked thoroughly miserable. "What you reckon, Chip, bin Laden or what?" asks Watcher 1. "Sure, looks like it, but this place is kinda nice, let's stick it out for a few months, there's a mound of DVDs to get through and that local kebab place is a beaut," replies Watcher 2. They high five each other and settle down to watch The Magnificent Seven for the third time.

Days, weeks go by. Langley (CIA HQ in Virginia) asks what the hell is going on. "Not 100 per cent sure yet, boss, s'looking good but gotta be sure. We think it might be Obama, sorry Osama, but it's difficult from here to be absolutely you know whaco certain. Chip, put the other one on, no that one, we haven't seen that yet." Langley:"What! what you say!" "Oh sorry boss, I was just talking about the eh, eh.. camera feed." Langley:"We're going to send over Boogey III." Boogey III (I made the name up for security reasons), is a super-sleuth Stealthy spy drone that can't be seen from the ground because it has been painted to look like a cloud. Boogey III spends the next two months hovering in an otherwise cloudless sky trying to check out The Pacer in the courtyard. The CIA Boogey III operators at a secret base in Pakistan devote most of their time shouting: "Look up, damn you, look up, we can't see your face!!" But The Pacer is always head-bowed. He knows a thing or two about what floats around in the sky after a lifetime of avoiding passing US satellites, but because he never looked up into the sky above The Compound he failed to spot the sole little fluffy cloud with the ever-so-tiny brrm brrm noise attached to it.

It's now December. The CIA boys have got through all their DVDs and the local stock is rubbish. So they're getting bored. Between them and Boogey III, they have signalled back to Langley the following secret intelligence: "There's a bloke about UBL's height [they always called Osama bin Laden UBL except when they called him Geronimo] with a beard living at The Compound. Spotted three or four women - doesn't he have four wives? - and some children and a couple of blokes who go out each day and come back with a mound of groceries. Watcher 8 followed one of them and it seems The Family eats nothing but aubergines. Please check files for UBL's diet."

Biggest worry is: is this a UBL decoy or the Real Deal? Safe House Team panics at the thought of getting it wrong. Osama would be furious. Sorry Obama would be furious. Reputation of the CIA at stake. Or at steak, medium rare please. There's also another spanner in the works. A bloke about 6ft 4ins with a beard and looking quite like UBL has been spotted going into the rear entrance of the ISI headquarters each day with a name tag round his neck. CIA followers couldn't quite make out the name but it looked something like Mr O'Laden.

Back in the Situation Room at the White House Obama (yes Obama) is into his fourth special Osama meeting to decide what to do about all this fascinating non-information. It's February. Most of his advisers advise the evidence is all circumstantial. Ok it looks like UBL, but you can never be sure with foreigners. And the beard looks too short. And what if the right UBL is the guy clocking in to work at the ISI. Can't take out a staff member of the ISI without causing a right rumpus. There's also concern about The Safe House. There had been an odd complaint to the local authority in Abbottabad that two non-Pakistani blokes had been at the centre of a street scene after someone tried to grab a bunch of DVDs from their shopping bag. (Yes the CIA boys had finally given in and had begun to watch the local DVDs, having seen The Magnificent Seven 14 times and The Right Stuff 20 times). Obama says it's time to make a decision. Everyone in the room says, "Don't do it, Mr President, if it's not UBL, you're going to make a fool of yourself and it'll be all your fault. We as your most senior advisers will tell The New York Times that we advised against it."  Obama scratches his chin and pronounces: "Ok I'm going to do it. Send in the Seals, and make sure one of them is 6ft 4ins, so when they shoot whoever is in The Compound, he can lie next to the body and measure up." Everyone in the Situation Room shakes his head wisely. There's only one Seal who is 6ft 4ins and he was due a weekend off on May 1 but instead became a hero of US Special Operations Forces, the man photographed lying next to the dead body of the Most Hunted Terrorist on Earth.

So it was the greatest intelligence feat of all time. The Safe House closes down. The CIA Watchers emerge into the sunlight humming the theme tune from The Magnificent Seven, and the UBL look-alike continues to clock in each day at the ISI HQ.

PS Don't forget, swallow this good.

PPS How do you know the toothbrush was invented in West Virginia?

Because if it had been invented anywhere else it would have been called the Teethbrush. Boom boom.

Crisis, what crisis, just shine my shoes, boy!

Apart from being a five-sided monster of a building alongside the Potomac River (and that's PotOmac), the Pentagon in all its glory is like a town with all the necessary facilities required to keep its thousands of inhabitants fed, watered, haircutted, dry-cleaned, gift-wrapped and, above all, shoe-shined. If your shoes are even slightly musty from the outside air - and boy, do the US military like their shoes to bristle with shineness whether in uniform or civvy dress - then the little shop just round the corner from the escalator that takes everyone up into the building from the  Metro entrance entrance is always in fine business. Always a queue. Always men sitting in chairs awaiting their polishing moment. I swear the barbers are not half as busy. Big meeting in Room 987, Corridor 3, full of exceptionally serious-looking dudes in army and marine uniforms about to ponder contingency planning for invading Iran, there's an empty chair. "Where's Colonel (everyone's a colonel) Mc.....?" "Sorry sir, the colonel's unavoidably detained." "Well, hell this meeting has to start, get me Col Mc on the line." "Col Mc, where the hell are you? I want to start the meeting." "Sorry, general, the queue was longer than I expected." "Shoe shine?" "Yessir, shoeshine." "Ok Colonel, we'll wait. You get a good shine now!" "Yessir." I haven't dared introduce my tacky shoes to the shoeshine man yet. Whenever I think I'm tempted, there's a row of heavy combat guys or oversized Pentagon civvy boys waiting to be treated. I pass on by. As for the barbers, well, far too risky. "You wanna what?" "Just a gentle trim please." "No 1, 2 or 3?" "Er, in England, a gentle trim means...." "You British or retarded?" I actually heard that the other day. Not said to me but relaid by someone else.

 

Talking of Pentagon, I had an interview planned with a US Air Force general last week but was running late. Osama (not Obama) bin Laden had been shot a few days earlier and I had to do an instant profile of the admiral in charge of the Seals who carried out the mission. I dashed out of my house in Alexandria Old Town and spotted a taxi. "The Pentagon please and quick, I'm going to be late." The taxi roared off. One minute later the taxi driver asked: "Have you got the address?" "Er, no, but it's the Pentagon, you know that building full of generals and admirals." Silence for two minutes. "Have you got the address?" "NO, BUT IT'S THAT HUGE OFFICE BUILDING, FIVE-SIDED AND I'M GOING TO BE LATE!!" Five minutes before I'm supposed to be sitting in front of this general.the taxi driver is playing meaninglessly with his SatNav. I've been in the taxi ten minutes - he said it would take ten minutes to get to the Pentagon - and make the mistake of looking out of the window only to see the Pentagon to my left but about three highways to my left. "There it is, where the hell are you going?" He mumbles and takes me into DC, past the Washington Monument. The Pentagon has disappeared. I'm LATE. The general's aide rings me. "Where are you?" "Not the foggiest", or words to that effect. "Come to the southern car park entrance." Frankly I'd be happy with any entrance provided it has something to do with the Pentagon. I see a sign for Chevvy Chase and decide that the only option is to leap from the taxi and run back. But miraculously after three three-point turns, fourteen requests for directions from bewildered police officers and a near running over of a poodle with a tartan coat, we return within sight of what used to be - still is? - the biggest office building in the world, and by some chance of fate I spot a sign which says southern car park entrance, I scream at the driver, l pay him 20 dollars thank you very much - the metre read 48 dollars - and run like mad towards the Corridor 3 entrance where my general is waiting. Fortunately he turns out to be pretty cool and relaxed and I notice that his boots are not over-polished. Clearly needs to join the queue.