Just weeks after Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency officials warned publicly of the dangers posed by leaks about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, top officials at both agencies and at the White House granted Hollywood filmmakers unusual access to those involved in planning the raid and some of the methods they used to do it, newly released government records show.
At a briefing in July 2011, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Mike Vickers told filmmakers Michael Boal and Katherine Bigelow that the leaders of the the Special Operations Command couldn’t speak to them for appearances’ sake. However, Vickers said that the Pentagon would make available a Navy SEAL who was involved in planning the raid from its earliest stages.
‘On the operators side, Adm. McRaven and Adm. Olson do not want to talk directly, because it’s just a bad, their [sic] just concerned as commanders of the force and they’re telling them all the time-don’t you dare talk to anybody, that it’s just a bad example if it gets out-even with all sorts of restrictions and everything,’ Vickers said, according to a transcript of the meeting released Friday to Judicial Watch. The conservative watchdog group filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit demanding the documents.
‘The basic idea is they’ll make a guy available who was involved from the beginning as a planner, a SEAL Team 6 Operator and Commander,’ McRaven said.
‘That’s dynamite,’ Boal replied, according to the transcript.
Bigelow, best known for ‘The Hurt Locker,’ also chimed in. ‘That’s incredible,’ she said, gratefully.
‘He’ll speak for operators and he’ll speak for senior military commanders,’ Vickers continued, adding that the designated SEAL would essentially be a mouthpiece for McRaven and Olson. ‘The only thing we ask is that you not reveal his name in any way as a consultant because again it’s the same thing, he shouldn’t be talking out of school, this at least gives him one step removed and he knows what he can and can’t say,’ Vickers added, vouching that the SEAL cleared to meet with the filmmakers would be able to provide ‘lots of color.’
The Pentagon is now withholding from the public and the press the same name DoD gave the filmmakers. The response sent to Judicial Watch explains the deletion by citing privacy concerns as well as a statute allowing the Secretary of Defense to protect the names of members of ‘routinely deployable’ and ‘sensitive’ units. It is unclear whether the court will uphold such a withholding given that the name was already disclosed to a member of the public by a senior official, apparently with some forethought.
A Pentagon spokesman stressed Tuesday night that the name given to the filmmakers was not that of someone directly involved in carrying out the bin Laden raid.
‘The identity of a planner, not a member of SEAL Team 6, was provided by USSOCOM as a possible point of contact for additional information if the DoD determined that additional support was merited,’ Lt. Col. James Gregory said. ‘No additional official DoD support was granted, nor to our knowledge was it pursued by the film makers.’
Some Republicans have accused the Obama administration of having shared secret information with the movie team in order to paint President Barack Obama in a flattering light in a film that was originally scheduled to come out before the November election. The film, now called ‘Zero Dark Thirty,’ has since been delayed to Dec. 19.
(Source: Politico)
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“Some Republicans have accused the Obama administration of having shared secret information with the movie team in order to paint President Barack Obama in a flattering light in a film that was originally scheduled to come out before the November election. The film, now called ‘Zero Dark Thirty,’ has since been delayed to Dec. 19.”
-> Wait and see! You can bet the film will come out by the beginning of OCTOBER!!!