Manhunt: The Inside Story of the Hunt for Bin Laden

The killing of Osama bin Laden in his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011 marked a hard-won if also long delayed triumph for the American intelligence community. Greg Barker's HBO-aired documentary explores how the ultimately successful operation was built on decades of painstaking investigation, analysis, and fieldwork—especially within and by the CIA. Following the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, bin Laden emerged as a victor, and—while denying ties to terrorism—began secretly financing the beginnings of a global jihad against perceived enemies. CIA analysts, seeing similarities in terrorist strikes in different places, became aware of al-Qaeda (an al-Qaeda “unit” existed at the CIA by 1995). Years of further intelligence gathering led to the first memo written for the White House about al-Qaeda in 1998, but it would be the tragic events of September 11, 2001 that would lead to a global war strategy aimed against the organization. Manhunt covers the long search that eventually resulted in the raid on bin Laden, but what is most fascinating here is the network of analysts and operatives who together doggedly made incremental progress in locating him. These individuals come across as regular people in extraordinary jobs, which can almost make one forget (until a CIA administrator reminds us) how much of their success was the direct result of coercive interrogations, so-called “black sites,” and outsourced torture sessions rendered by U.S. allies. Still, this is a solid documentary chronicle of the events covered in the Hollywood blockbuster Zero Dark Thirty. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (T. Keogh)