Seymour Hersh is on a promotional tour for his new book The Killing of Osama bin Laden (Verso Books), in which he investigates the U.S. story of Abbottabad. In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, he spoke about how unlikely it was that the Pakistani military and ISI were unaware that U.S. helicopters had crossed into Pakistan and were on the way to accomplish their kill mission. See, the United States had provided Pakistan with the means to detect just such an incursion.
We begin giving contracts to Raytheon. … it was over $900 million when I stopped looking at it, for an incredible radar system. It’s a 3D audible system that we built for them, state of the n art, no — among other things, every image could not be deleted.
Let Hersh repeat:
… you could not delete an image. It was that solid of a system, A-plus system. The only — I learned later that what they had to do, if they didn’t want to see our choppers coming — and remember the story, they came in without being seen, and the Pakistani government didn’t know it.
How did the Pakistanis miss the mission?
They actually probably — I learned this later — probably shut down the system.
Because they were forewarned obviously.