The Finish

October 22, 2012
Bestselling author Bowden (Black Hawk Down) follows the long and often cold trail from 9/11 to a compound in Abbottabad, Paki-stan, where âa hand-picked... Dream Teamâ of U.S. Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden, in this sketchy and surprisingly vapid account. Relying on interviews with President Barack Obama and many of the national security officials directly involved in the planning of the mission, Bowden shows how âa sophisticated targeting engineâ that included supercomputers and surveillance drones tracked down the elusive terrorist mastermind beginning with a single name. Bowden did not interview any of the SEAL team members on the raid, and the action takes place mostly in comfortable government offices far from the tip of the spear. Despite silence from the SEALs, the omniscient author knows what was on their minds (âThe one thing... always in their thoughts was danger...â) and in their hearts (they âwere veterans of many raids, hardened to violence and deathâ). The hero of Bowdenâs narrative seems to be Obama, who risked his presidency on the type of uncertain raid that had doomed Jimmy Carter. Readers expecting a detailed, dramatic account of the raid on the Abbottabad compound will be disappointed. Agent: Robert Barnett, Williams & Connolly.

Starred review from January 1, 2013
A best-selling author explains the 10-year effort to find, fix and finish the world's most-wanted terrorist Bowden (Worm: The First Digital World War, 2011, etc.) devotes a taut chapter to the attack on Osama bin Laden, and he lavishly credits the courage and professionalism of the military men at the finish. But more than anything, he pays tribute and attention to "the effort and patience and will" of America's intelligence network and counterterrorism professionals, to the often-overlooked virtues of a bureaucracy endlessly grinding away to connect the dots of information that would lead to the sheik's lair. An effective opening chapter focuses on the day the Twin Towers fell and reminds us of the many then-obscure individuals who would rise to levels of immense power and responsibility during the long decade it took to kill bin Laden. Throughout those 10 years, through changes of administrations, the U.S. spent its time figuring out "exactly how to fight back" against an elusive, stateless enemy, employing tools old (on-the-ground human intelligence), new (supercomputers, drones) and improved (special ops) to eliminate al-Qaida's mastermind. As he efficiently tracks America's progress in this exquisitely difficult task, Bowden interleaves chapters depicting bin Laden's increasing isolation and frustration in Pakistan. He also explodes a few myths surrounding the raid itself: the president's "gutsy call" in fact had the near-unanimous support of his top advisers; there was no firefight at the compound; bin Laden was not in fact living in luxury, nor was he in effective control of his own organization; at least some of the information that led to his capture almost surely derived from torture or coercive interrogation. A superb storyteller, Bowden captures the tense drama accompanying the final months of the bin Laden hunt, even as he underscores the quiet, essential work of years.

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