U.S. Will Not Pay $25 Million Osama Bin Laden Reward, Say Officials

U.S. Will Not Pay $25 Million Osama Bin Laden Reward, Say Officials

No one will receive the $25 million reward for the capture of Osama bin Laden, say U.S. officials, because the raid that killed the al Qaeda leader in Pakistan on May 2 was the result of electronic intelligence, not human informants.

"We do not expect a reward to be paid," said a senior U.S. official familiar with the bin Laden hunt, meaning that the $25 million bounty offered by the U.S. under the Rewards for Justice program after the 9/11 terror attacks will probably remain uncollected.

The reason is simple, say officials involved in or knowledgeable about the hunt for the world's most wanted man: the CIA and the military never had an al Qaeda operative as an informer willing to give him up. Instead, what killed bin Laden was electronic surveillance, and an operational mistake by one of his closest associates. After a slow drip of intelligence year after year, and then a final flurry of data collection and analysis brought a team of SEALs to bin Laden's Abbottabad compound on a moonless night.

In previous manhunts, such as the capture of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein or the killing of his two sons, U.S. intelligence and military commandos had the help of insiders and human sources. In each case, someone received millions of dollars in reward money for their efforts.


http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/osama-bin-laden-reward-paid/story?id=13633236

in some compound near the military training base. Fuck you, where's my 25 million?!

Give the 25 mill to veterans' groups, scholarships for vets' kids, like that.

Soldiers as a group did the deed, they get the benefit.

Neither will Addington.

The troops, the pilots, the people on the ground observing, maybe some for the support crews who got them in the air. Might not turn out to be a lot for each guy, but say 50 grand is still a pretty nice thank you.

Or, donate it to the Veteran's Administration hospitals.