Zero Dark Thirty Page #8

you know, looking for his

toothbrush, but they burn the trash.

We started a vaccination program,

sent a doctor to the house,

see if he could pull blood,

but that didn't work out.

We thought about sending

a guy with a bucket,

to pull a sample from the sewer,

to analyze his fecal matter.

What was wrong with that, exactly?

What was wrong with that? That, uh...

The sample would be too diluted.

And it's asking too much to get a voice

confirmation with him on the phone?

They don't make telephone

calls from the compound.

We pulled the cell tower nearby.

And I'm also going to give up hope that

he might ever get in that white SUV, and

drive around a bit and we could see him.

Don't they get groceries?

The unidentified third

male does not get groceries.

He does not leave the compound; he does

not present himself for photographs.

When he needs fresh air, he paces

around, beneath a grape arbor.

But the leaves are so thick,

they obscure our satellite views.

This is a professional

attempt to avoid detection.

Okay? Real tradecraft.

The only people we've seen...

behave in this way, are other

top-level al-Qaeda operatives.

We did a red team on your analysis.

According to them, this behavior could

belong to someone other than al-Qaeda.

They did give a 40 percent chance

that the unidentified third man...

is a senior al-Qaeda operative.

But they also said there's a 35

percent chance he's a Saudi drug dealer.

a Kuwaiti arms smuggler.

the relatives of the brothers.

Basically, we agree with you.

The house screams security.

It screams someone who wants

privacy; it even screams bad guy.

- But it does not scream bin Laden.

- You get the point?

If you can't prove it's bin Laden,

at least prove it's not someone else.

Like a drug dealer.

You know we lost the ability to prove

them when we lost the Detainee Program.

Who the hell am I supposed to ask? Huh?

Some guy in Gitmo who's all lawyered up?

He'll just tell his

lawyer to warn bin Laden.

You'll think of something.

He'd be the first successful drug

dealer never to have dealt drugs.

He has no internet access to the house;

he makes no phone calls either in or out

Who's he selling to? Who's he buying

from? How's he making his money?

And if you were to say, "He's retired,"

I'd say, "Where's the swimming pool?"

Where's the gold cage with the falcons?

And why does he send his courier...

to the two cities in Pakistan,

we most associate with al-Qaeda,

that have nothing particularly

to do with heroin production.

The president is a thoughtful,

analytical guy. He needs proof.

Go ahead, you guys.

I gotta say, your job...

- Hmm.

- Huh.

I just don't get the rhythms of politics

Oh, you think this is

political? If this was political,

we'd be having this conversation in

October, when there's an election bump.

This is pure risk, based on deductive

reasoning, inference, supposition,

and the only human reporting

you have is six years old,

from detainees, who were

questioned under duress.

The political move here is to

tell you to go f*** yourself,

and remind you, that I was in the room,

when your old boss pitched WMD Iraq.

At least, there, you

guys brought photographs.

You know, you're right, I agree

with everything you just said.

What I meant was, a man in your position

How do you evaluate the

risk of not doing something?

Hmm?

The risk of potentially letting

bin Laden slip through your fingers.

That is a fascinating question.

Hey.

I'm not saying we're gonna do it,

but the president wants to

know, if we were gonna act,

how would we do it?

Give us options.

Technically, these don't exist.

I actually tried to kill this

program a couple of times.

They've gone through, uh,

an initial round of testing,

and they have excellent radar defeat.

We just haven't tested

with people in them yet.

You'll notice these stealth panels,

similar to what we use on the B-2.

The rotors have been

muffled with decibel killers.

It's slower than a Black Hawk,

lacks the offense and the stability.

But, it can hide.

So, uh, e-excuse me, but what do we-what

do we need this for in-in Libya. I mean,

Gaddafi's anti-air is

virtually non-existent.

Maya, do you wanna brief them?

There are two narratives, about

the location of Osama bin Laden.

The one that you're most familiar with,

is that UBL is hiding in

a cave in the tribal areas.

That he's surrounded by a large

contingent of loyal fighters.

But that narrative, is

pre-9/11 understanding of UBL.

The second narrative, is

that he's living in a city.

Living in a city with multiple

points of egress and entry,

Access to communications, so that he

can keep in touch with the organization.

You can't run a global network of

interconnected cells from a cave.

We've located an individual, we

believe, based on detainee reporting,

is bin Laden's courier.

He's living in a house,

in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

And we assess,

that one of the other

occupants of the house,

is UBL.

General.

Excuse me.

Uh, so, UBL, you got-you got

an intel source on the ground?

- No.

- No?

Okay, so how do you know it's bin Laden?

'Cause the truth is, we've

been on this op before.

It was '07, and it wasn't bin

Laden, and we lost a couple of guys.

Totally understand.

Bin Laden uses a courier, to

interact with the outside world.

By locating the courier,

we've located bin Laden.

That's really the intel.

That's it?

Quite frankly, I didn't

even wanna use you guys.

With your dip and your velcro

and all your gear bullshit.

I wanted to drop a bomb.

But people didn't believe in

this lead enough to drop a bomb.

So, they're using you guys, as canaries,

in a theory that if bin Laden

isn't there, you can sneak away,

- and no one will be the wiser.

- Hmm.

But bin Laden, is there.

And you're gonna kill him for me.

They're nervous downtown.

I don't think we'll get an approval.

This decision is not going...

It's her against the world.

Oh, yeah.

I'm about to go look

the president in the eye.

And what I'd like to

know, no f***ing bullshit,

is where everyone stands on this thing.

Now, very simply, is he there,

or is he not f***ing there?

We all come at this, through the

filter of our own past experiences.

Now I remember Iraq WMD,

very clearly. I fronted that.

And I can tell you the case for that,

was much stronger than this case.

A f***ing "yes" or a "no".

We don't deal in certainty,

we deal in probability.

And I'd say there's a 60

percent probability he's there.

I concur, 60 percent.

I'm at 80 percent, their

OPSEC is what convinces me.

- You guys ever agree on anything?

- Well, I agree with Mike.

We're basing this mostly

on detainee reporting,

and I spent a bunch of time in those

rooms. I'd say it's a soft 60, sir.

I'm virtually certain there's

some high value target there,

I'm just not sure it's bin Laden.

Well, this is a little bit

of a cluster f***, isn't it?

I'd like to know what Maya thinks.

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