Months ago, I asked the Pentagon for its visual records of Osama bin Laden’s sea burial under the Freedom of Information Act. Today, I received a thick packet of No — a complete denial that any records exist. Read it.
The core of the response is this: the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, United States Special Operations Command, and the Department of the Navy all had their records searched. Nothing. Admiral Mike Mullen’s email was scanned. Nothing. The Pentagon claims not a single person aboard the USS Carl Vinson, where Bin Laden’s remains were disposed of, took a single picture. Not a single email from the ship makes reference to photo or video. Essentially: nobody in the military has evidence. So did these things ever exist? If so, they’re probably in a filing cabinet at the CIA, where they’ll be safe for the rest of time.
Read for yourself.
Frank
Friday, December 16, 2011 at 9:14 AMWhat do you expect from the American government? the truth!!!???
americans *shakes head*
smurfydog
Friday, December 16, 2011 at 8:32 PMSeriously – had any western nation’s military undertaken such actions, would you expect any different response from their government?
Koppenflak
Friday, December 16, 2011 at 9:46 AMHardly surprising. The wording of the document is inherently true, and it seems quite plausible to me that yes, the indicated departments probably were likely to originally possess such documents, and were the correct ones to search.
What it doesn’t at all indicate is the Intelligence service’s hand in securing any and all data that related to the mission to be archived at Langley.
Again, hardly surprising. The Intelligence service falls outside the guidelines of “public interest”, and they are under no obligation to discuss their activities.
Patters
Friday, December 16, 2011 at 11:23 AMI’m sure that there’s evidence, you’ll just have to wait for julian assange to unearth it
Titsnass
Friday, December 16, 2011 at 12:05 PMPhahh….! Assange is screwed, more likely they’ll put him in a box and throw away the key.
Christian
Friday, December 16, 2011 at 5:24 PMWhat? That hack? Pffft!
Titsnass
Friday, December 16, 2011 at 12:07 PMReally Giz, why would you think they’d give you the time of day in the first place?
*REDACTED*
Friday, December 16, 2011 at 1:23 PMhttps://www.propublica.org/article/government-could-hide-existence-of-records-under-foia-rule-proposal/single
joe
Friday, December 16, 2011 at 1:24 PMthey might not have it, was probably a CIA operation so they have the details
Daniel
Saturday, December 17, 2011 at 2:41 PMThe first paragraph of the letter is probably generated by a computer. The phrase “photographs and/or footage of the sea burial of osama bin laden” was probably searched up by some pen pusher and shoved into a standard letter.
The real name for such records probably comes under the file name “newmovie.avi” under 10 trees of directories, all names “new folder (2), new folder (3)” and so on.
Then again if it existed, i’m sure someone would’ve had some sort of material at least relating to the event in some minor way.
The only way for absolutely nothing to be of existence is for it to be, well – not true?
Daniel
Saturday, December 17, 2011 at 2:42 PMExcuse the spelling mistakes.