Book on Bin Laden Killing Contradicts U.S. Account

WASHINGTON — A new firsthand account of the Navy SEALs raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan last year contradicts the Obama administration’s previous descriptions of the mission, raising questions about whether the leader of Al Qaeda posed a clear threat to the commandos who fired on him.

According to the account in the book, “No Easy Day,” which will go on sale next week under the pseudonym Mark Owen, Bin Laden was shot in the head when he peered out of his bedroom door into a top-floor hallway of his compound as the SEALs rushed up a narrow stairwell toward him.

The author, whom military officials have identified as Matt Bissonnette, 36, said he was directly behind the “point man,” or lead commando, as the SEALs followed Bin Laden into the bedroom, where they found him collapsed on the floor at the foot of his bed with “blood and brains spilled out of the side of his skull,” and two women wailing over his body that was “still twitching and convulsing.”

The author said he and another member then trained their weapons on Bin Laden’s chest and fired several rounds, until he was motionless. The SEALs later found two unloaded weapons — an AK-47 rifle and a Makarov pistol — near the bedroom door.

In the administration’s version of events after the raid, the lead commando’s shot in the stairwell missed, and the SEALs confronted Bin Laden in the bedroom, killing him with one shot to the chest and another above the left eye.

The new book’s account, if true, raises the question of whether Bin Laden posed a clear threat to the commandos in his death throes.

Military officials have said that the SEALs made split-second decisions, fearing that Bin Laden, even though unarmed, could have exploded a suicide vest or other booby trap.

The Pentagon and the White House declined to comment on the new account, reflecting at least in part the administration’s reluctance to reopen an issue at a time when Republicans have accused the administration of exploiting the raid’s success to burnish President Obama’s national security credentials during his re-election campaign.

“We’re not going to confirm or deny his account,” said Lt. Col. James Gregory, a Defense Department spokesman. Colonel Gregory said the department was still weighing disciplinary or legal action against the author.

Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council, also declined to comment, saying, “As President Obama said on the night that justice was brought to Osama bin Laden, ‘We give thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country.’ ”

Elsewhere in the book, the author states that members of the SEALs unit were not “huge fans of Obama,” although they respected the commander in chief for authorizing the operation. “We just got this guy re-elected,” the author quotes another member of the unit, identified by the pseudonym Walt, as saying.

The Associated Press and The Huffington Post reported the new account of Bin Laden’s death on Wednesday after purchasing copies of the book. The New York Times obtained a copy later on Wednesday.

In response to a crush of news media attention, criticism and consumer demand, Dutton, the imprint of Penguin that acquired the book in secret, said this week that it was moving up the book’s planned Sept. 11 release date by one week, to Tuesday. Demand for the 336-page book has been enormous; it is currently No. 1 on the best-seller lists at Amazon.com and BN.com.