--- title: White House Refutes Seymour Hersh Account of Osama bin Laden Killing description: The White House denied a report that Pakistan helped in the operation to kill Osama bin Laden canonical: https://time.com/3854546/white-house-seymour-hersh-bin-laden/ author: Sam Frizell article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-11T20:50:18.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T07:06:31.233Z article:section: Politics og:title: White House Stands by Original Story of bin Laden Killing og:description: The White House denied a report that Pakistan helped in the operation to kill Osama bin Laden og:url: https://time.com/3854546/white-house-seymour-hersh-bin-laden/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7116f9f3b7c87fc/6987ef498e06015e0e45e8fb/obama3.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: US President Barack Obama re creates his speach announcing the death of Osama Bin Laden at The White ouse in Washington DC, May 1, 2011. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: White House Stands by Original Story of bin Laden Killing twitter:description: The White House denied a report that Pakistan helped in the operation to kill Osama bin Laden twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7116f9f3b7c87fc/6987ef498e06015e0e45e8fb/obama3.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # White House Stands by Original Story of bin Laden Killing by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell May 11, 2015 8:50 PM UTC  U.S. President Barack Obama announcing the death of Osama bin Laden at the White House in Washington on May 1, 2011 U.S. President Barack Obama announcing the death of Osama bin Laden at the White House in Washington on May 1, 2011Chris Kleponis—Getty Images by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell May 11, 2015 8:50 PM UTC The White House on Monday doubled down on its original narrative of the killing of Osama bin Laden, a day after a report by a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist suggested the Obama Administration had lied about details of the 2011 raid. Ned Price, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said that contrary to the article by Seymour Hersh, the operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was a unilateral U.S. mission without Pakistani involvement. “The President decided early on not to inform any other government, including the Pakistani government, which was not notified until after the raid had occurred,” he said. “This was a U.S. operation through and through.” The central allegation in Hersh’s [article](http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden), published Sunday in the _London Review of Books_, is that the U.S. worked in collaboration with the Pakistani government in the run-up to the raid. “The White House still maintains that the mission was an all-American affair, and that the senior generals of Pakistan’s army and Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) were not told of the raid in advance,” writes Hersh. “This is false, as are many other elements of the Obama administration’s account.” Hersh’s single source for this assertion is “a retired senior intelligence official who was knowledgeable about the initial intelligence about bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad.” The White House has called the allegations “patently false,” the _Wall Street Journal_ [reports](http://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-denies-report-that-pakistan-helped-in-bin-laden-hit-1431363009), while a CIA spokesman said Hersh’s report was “utter nonsense.” American officials have consistently maintained that the killing of Osama bin Laden by a team of Navy SEALs was done without any Pakistani involvement. Then CIA chief Leon Panetta told TIME in [his first postraid interview](http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/03/cia-chief-breaks-silence-u-s-ruled-out-involving-pakistan-in-bin-laden-raid-early-on/) on May 3, 2011, that the U.S. had decided not to tell Pakistan about the raid beforehand. Here is the first paragraph of that [story](http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/03/cia-chief-breaks-silence-u-s-ruled-out-involving-pakistan-in-bin-laden-raid-early-on/): --- > “” --- Hersh’s article has been anticipated for some time. In 2013, he [told](http://swampland.time.com/2013/09/27/new-yorkers-seymour-hersh-bin-laden-raid-one-big-lie/?iid=sl-article-mostpop1) the _Guardian_ that official statements made by American officials about the raid amounted to “one big lie,” and that “not one word of it is true.” Now that his article is out, its sourcing is being scrutinized [here](http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/11/opinions/bergen-bin-laden-story-a-lie/index.html) and [here](http://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8584473/seymour-hersh-osama-bin-laden). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3854546/white-house-seymour-hersh-bin-laden/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3854546/white-house-seymour-hersh-bin-laden/"},"headline":"White House Stands by Original Story of bin Laden Killing","datePublished":"2015-05-11T20:50:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T07:06:31.233Z","description":"A CIA spokesperson said the claim Pakistan was involved was \"utter nonsense\"","url":"https://time.com/3854546/white-house-seymour-hersh-bin-laden/","keywords":["National Security","Osama Bin laden"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7116f9f3b7c87fc/6987ef498e06015e0e45e8fb/obama3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sam Frizell","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7116f9f3b7c87fc/6987ef498e06015e0e45e8fb/obama3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US President Barack Obama re creates his speach announcing the death of Osama Bin Laden at The White ouse in Washington DC, May 1, 2011.","caption":"US President Barack Obama re creates his speach announcing the death of Osama Bin Laden at The White ouse in Washington DC, May 1, 2011.","creditText":"Chris Kleponis—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/national-security/","name":"National Security"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3854546/white-house-seymour-hersh-bin-laden/","name":"White House Stands by Original Story of bin Laden Killing"}}]}] ```