A New York exhibition traces 10 years of brainstorming the bloodiest attacks in history, saluting the tenacity of American intelligence. To see until May 2021.
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Precise model of the Pakistani villa where Osama Bin Laden resided, photo of the 4X4 of a key messenger of the leader of Al-Qaeda, hesitations of Barack Obama before approving the raid on his villa: a New York exhibition traces 10 years brainstorming the bloodiest attacks in history, saluting the tenacity of American intelligence.
Entitled “Revealed : The Hunt for Bin Laden” (“Revealed: The Hunt for Bin Laden”), the exhibition, which opens Friday at museum of the attacks of September 11, 2001, looks back on the main stages of this long manhunt.
It ended on the night of May 1 to 2, 2011 with the operation “Geronimo”, eliminating the prime contractor for the attacks that had reduced the World Trade Center to ashes and killed nearly 3,000 people.
No shattering revelation in this exhibition, which is to last until May 2021: nothing in particular on possible collaborations between Pakistani and American intelligence, contradictory sources of information.
At the heart of the work of intelligence officers
But in some 60 objects – some of which were seized in the villa – and dozens of photos and videos, the visitor glimpses the painstaking work of intelligence agents: since the departure without a trace of the leader of Al-Qaeda from the mountains of Tora Bora, in Afghanistan, at the end of 200, until the identification of his messenger Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti and his Jeep in Peshawar, in 2010.
It is he who will lead the American agents to the garrison town of Abbottabad, 80 km from Islamabad, and to the luxurious three-story residence, in the enclosure of which an individual regularly made the 100 not, like a prisoner. Americans will nickname him the “Pacer”, before gradually arriving at the virtual certainty that it is bin Laden.
The exhibition focuses on history “human” of this operation, through multiple interviews: from the senior officials who validated the assault, to the members of the Navy Seal commando (US Navy special forces) who invaded the villa, through agents telling, anonymously, how they understood that to find bin Laden, it was necessary to follow the people likely to help him.
“At the forefront of history”
Interviews reflect “the thoughts of the people then in charge”, and the dilemmas to be resolved before deciding to send a commando to attack the residence, underlines Alice Greenwald, president of the museum.
The exhibition shows “the difficulty in making these decisions”, “the gravity and the burden they represent”, she says. Listening to them, “it is as if we were at the forefront of history”.
After 9/11, American intelligence had been pinned down for internal rivalries, which prevented the sharing of information crucial to thwarting the attacks. But they come out glorified by this story, which celebrates their rediscovered unity and their tenacity.
We see in particular the damaged cap of one of them, injured by the fragments of a bomb set off by a double agent during a meeting from which the Americans were hoping for new information on Bin Laden.
Or a roll of honor that sat for a long time in the office of the FBI in Afghanistan: all the agents who came to participate in the hunt signed it before leaving, and it is now kept like a trophy in Washington.
“Savor this moment again”
According to Clifford Chanin, the museum’s vice-president in charge of exhibitions, the event was the result of more than three years of exchanges with intelligence agencies, during which he often wondered “how far they would agree to tell the story” of this secret mission.
“We don’t know what they didn’t want to tell us (…) But we know that we were able to go further than anyone else, for the objects that were lent to us, and the access that we have had people “, he said.
The announcement of bin Laden’s death, by Barack Obama on May 1, 2011, was greeted with jubilation in the United States and especially in New York, with spontaneous gatherings in Times Square and on the World Trade Center site. .
For many Americans, the exhibition could be an opportunity to savor that moment again. “It is truly impressive for me to see the work and the efforts made by the military and intelligence, on behalf of our loved ones.”, said Patricia Reilly, whose sister died on the 101st floor of one of the twin towers, one of the first to see the exhibit.
“It reminds me of the feeling of gratitude I felt the day the president announced that they had killed bin Laden,” she stressed. “We have waited so long for justice to be done.”
Read also :
⋙ Philippe Torreton: how his stay in Afghanistan upset him
⋙ Trump defends information sharing in the face of terrorism
⋙ How the First World War gave birth to intelligence
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