“The Shell Game” and the Osama bin Laden Documents

What could possibly compel the government to go out of its way to hide the official record on the most important raid in history? It’s hard to fathom, but a recent Associated Press article by Richard Larner shows that the Pentagon is doing just that by sending all its records on the Osama bin Laden raid to the CIA, effectively sealing them into the “FOIA black hole” of government secrecy, and it has Archive Director Tom Blanton wondering if we have a “shell game in place of open government.”

An accurate account of Operation Geronimo —already muddled in the days after bin Laden’s death by what White House press secretary called the “fog of combat” and conflicting versions of events which falsely said that bin Laden was armed and even firing at the SEALs, misidentified which of bin Laden’s sons was killed, and incorrectly said bin Laden’s wife died…