Robert J. O'Neill. Tim took a dive, said a former noncommissioned SEAL officer, and it was at Moores direction. Szymanski had known Slabinski for at least 15 years. Sitting with old friends, the retired SEAL was handed a ring-bound portfolio. Bottom: McRaven, left, and Capt. So many dead bodies, so many, everywhere, and so the potential opportunities for mutilations were great.. The truth is that such stuff only galvanizes the enemy.. The mission was code-named Objective Bull. The old sailor put the portfolio down. During the mission, the SEALs reported receiving small arms fire from exterior positions, though no one was hit. The SEALs in the unit were furious that the White House revealed to the world that Navy SEALs had carried out the raid, violating the traditional code of silence about their missions. By late 2007, Slabinski was deployed to Afghanistan as the senior noncommissioned officer in Blue Squadron. Bissonnette claimed he shot and killed al Kuwaiti and had fired bullets into bin Laden on the third floor. Theres no military purpose for it, a former Red Squadron operator told me. No investigation into an unjustified killing has ever resulted in formal disciplinary action against a member of SEAL Team 6. The lack of battlefield discipline was not limited to a single squadron. No one was upset that he ordered a beheading or all the men shot even if they were unarmed. As the legend of SEAL Team 6 grew, a rogue culture arose that operated outside of the Navys established mechanisms for command and investigation. It wasnt necessary. Like, hey look at this dude, and the guy would just twitch again. According to multiple SEAL Team 6 sources, the events of that day set off a cascade of extraordinary violence. By aflam arabia. The situation was not particularly unusual. The enemy had the SEALs outnumbered. We needed that there was not a better group of people to go and do that. A few days after the attempted interview, investigators obtained photos purporting to be of the dead fighter. They had bonded over Robertss death. According to two senior SEAL Team 6 sources, however, the leadership dynamic in Blue Squadron was a failure. The beauty of what they have constructed, said a former teammate about how Bissonnette and ONeill cornered the market on the bin Laden raid, is that there is only one guy, essentially, who can come forward and say theyre lying and he wont ever talk.. Moore told his deputy, Szymanski, who was in Afghanistan, to sort things out. Photos: U.S. Department of Defense; Screengrab from video by U.S. Department of Defense; U.S. Navy by the Roberts family. These were family weapons, said the retired SEAL. Im disappointed he didnt take a knee.. Smethers threatened to expose the SEALs for what he believed was a series of war crimes; the canoeing incident was just one of several operations in which Smethers alleged that Gold Squadron operators violated the laws of war. Senior leaders at the command knew about the misconduct and did little to eradicate it. You dont whistleblow on the teams and when you win on the battlefield, you dont lose investigations.. Again their helicopter took fire as it landed near the top.. All six were photographed. At the reunion, a few hundred yards from the Atlantic Ocean, a small group of current and former master chiefs stood around drinking and telling war stories. Here, commanders returning from a deployment leave their hard drives with technicians who transfer PowerPoints, after-actions reports, and photos of each operation a squadron conducted abroad. For some of them, what was most troubling was not that Hyder mighthave taken gratuitous revenge for Robertss death on an unrelated civilian, but that on more than one occasion, as ground force commander, he had fired his own weapon to neutralize perceived threats. The sixth season of SEAL Team has been ordered on February 1, 2022, then has premiered on September 18 and concluded on November 20, 2022. The falsehoods, both significant and slight, demonstrate that even when conducting the most important missions, SEAL Team 6 was unable to rise above the culture of deceit, personal enrichment, and self-aggrandizement that has corrupted a fighting unit legendary for its discipline and code of honor. Back at the base, hegave a speech to a group of analysts and nonoperational officers in which he told them that his bloody appearance was a demonstration of how a battlefield commander should lead. Officially known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, SEAL Team 6 is today the most celebrated of the U.S. militarys special mission units. No cuts were visible in the photos, according to a military official who has reviewed the file. During a late-night raid at a northern Kunar compound, Silver Squadron operators killed several captors but accidentally killed Norgrove when an inexperienced SEAL threw a fragment grenade at one of the captors. In what would become part of a pattern of secrecy and silence, the SEAL operators dealt with the issue on their own and kept the incident from their chain of command. O'Neill (born 10 April 1976) is a former United States Navy SEAL (1996-2012 . I shot him, finished him. At DEVGRU (Team 6 to the uninformed) they have a Grave Stone / Rock of Shame. They also had terrain advantage. It was at this point that some critics in the military complained that SEAL Team 6 with their full beards and arms, legs, and torsos covered in tattoos looked like members of a biker gang. Moore did not respond to requests for comment. Neither wasloaded. Then officials took all three of those details back, though they maintained the al Qaeda leader posed a threat. The two weapons found on the third floor were not discovered until the rooms were searched. Inside the command, the incident became known as the Wedding Party bombing after it was learned that the convoy was driving to a wedding. Others were much more critical. Two of the operators with Hyder reported afterward that the man was not a threat. The death andattempted decapitation of Neil Roberts on Takur Ghar affected no one so profoundly as Britt Slabinski, the operator who led the rescue team back up the mountainonly to find that Roberts was already dead. Illustration: Attila Futaki for The Intercept. During the debrief, Red was identified as having hit bin Laden with a fatal shot, and ONeill was credited with putting security rounds into him after bin Laden had already gone down. Bissonnette eventually settled his legal case with the government, agreeing to return $6.7 million in profits from the sale of No Easy Day and giving up any proceeds from future sales of the book. Bissonnette's name is reportedly inscribed on a "rock of shame" outside SEAL Team 6 headquarters, alongside others who are officially "persona non grata" at that elite unit. Paramilitary officers from the CIA, including a covert joint unit under the agencys command called the Omega program, worked closely with the SEALs. Thats all it takes to support the journalism you rely on. The SEALs were suspected of taking the money. He said canoeing became big in 2007. The flight took 90 minutes, and as the Black Hawk Bissonnette rode in approached the compound walls, it effectively slammed on the brakes. The first and best-known was the rescue of Capt. Timothy Szymanski, commanding officer of the Naval Special Warfare Group, after Slabinski was blackballed by SEAL Team 6 in Norfolk, Va., March 25, 2011. But in 1998, after intervention by a senior officer at Dam Neck, Howard was given a slot on Green Team. McRavens new ordersset off a struggle between the JSOC commander and SEAL Team 6s enlisted ranks that played out in a series of high-profile hostage rescues ordered by President Obama. One former teammate who served with Slabinski described his effort that day outnumbered and with inferior fire support, taking incoming fire from the moment the helicopter landed as one of the most heroic things Ive ever seen. On the day when SEAL Team 6 lost its first operator in the post-9/11 era, Slabinski became a unit legend. Former US Navy SEAL Robert O'Neill, identified in news accounts as the member of SEAL Team Six who killed Osama bin Laden. Other SEALs on the ground proceeded as though the survivors were combatants. His name was added to SEAL. Consider what the world of media would look like without The Intercept. Within two weeks of the apparent beheading, Moore deployed to Afghanistan. These were guys who were running a cell near our base, the CIA officer said. Red could see bin Laden bleeding out from his chest wound but he still had not entered the bedroom. who is on the navy seal rock of shame. The discussion covered battlefield ethics. Both teams exited the helicopters to find a grim scene. ONeill later implied in the Esquire profile that he shot bin Laden because he wasnt sure Reds shots had hit the target. The units elite stature has insulated its members from the scrutiny and military justice that lesser units would have faced for the same actions. Senior leaders at the command knew the grisly circumstances of Robertss death had unsettled Red Team. Id look through the post-op photos and see multiple canoes on one objective, several times a deployment, the retired SEAL said. Made up of no more than 200 SEAL operators when the Afghan war began, SEAL Team 6 was the lesser known of the U.S. militarys elite special mission units. What we didnt do was turn him in. Like Vic Hyder, he struggled to command the respect of his men. Robertss death, and the subsequent operations in eastern Afghanistan during the winter 2002 deployment, left an indelible impression on SEAL Team 6, especially on Red Team. Tim Szymanski. There was no plan for capture, and no contingency for a surrender. As a result, photographs of canoed enemy fighters virtually ceased to appear in after-action reports. Scott Moore, and his deputy, Capt. The hatchet was too intimate, too closely aligned with a tomahawk, to have been a good idea. The former SEAL, who himself had served in Red during his career, said that by giving operators the weapon of their battlefield persona, Howard sent an unmistakable message to his men: Use it. At that point, Hyder began assessing the damage and surveying the dead. The rating means the. It ruined some of these guys, said the former SEAL operator on the mission. Just as important as mental toughness and physical fitness are to being a complete operator, spiritual resiliency is an often . What do Navy SEALs think about fellow SEALs who cash in on the brand post-service? But in the eyes of the enlisted SEALs of Red Team, Hyder had killed a man who didnt have to die. And earlier this week, the independent Navy Times reported that six members of SEAL Team 10 tested positive last year for cocaine use and other drugs while serving. Simply claiming to be a current or former member of the military is not illegal. He was awarded the Silver Star for his efforts at Takur Ghar to save Roberts and the rest of the Red Team recon element. Richard Phillips, captain of the commercial vessel the Maersk Alabama, in April 2009 from Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. But this started in 2002 and continued through the wars. Howards distribution of the hatchets worried several senior SEAL Team 6 members and some CIA paramilitary officers who worked with his squadron. Howard took the units identity seriously, and after 9/11, despite the questionable circumstances that led to his ascent, his influence steadily grew. The SEALs in the unit were furious that the White House revealed to the world that Navy SEALs had carried out the raid, violating the traditional code of silence about their missions. McRaven, who was informed of the killings only after he knew Phillips was safe, was incensed. He reminded us all that our first loyalty was to the Constitution.. That was the end of that. Hyder said that his single shot had blasted open the mans head. Ten officers and master chiefs voted unanimously against allowing Slabinski to return to the command. Vasely, who was wearing night-vision goggles, looked through a window and saw one of his operators, his back turned, squatting over the body of a dead militant. Made up of no more than 200 SEAL operators when the Afghan war began, SEAL Team 6 was the lesser known of the U.S. military's elite "special mission" units. Clockwise from top left: Blue Squadron, known as the Pirates; Gold Squadron, known as the Crusaders or Knights; Red Squadron, known as the Redmen; and Silver Squadron. Bravo 3/3B. And afterwards, we added the psychological warfare.. 471K views 6 years ago http://democracynow.org - A stunning new expos published today in The Intercept about the elite military unit SEAL Team 6 reveals a darker side of the group best. Audio from an unpublished interview with Britt Slabinksi conducted by Malcolm MacPherson, author of a 2005 book on the battle of Roberts Ridge. For some of Howards men, however, the hatchets soon became more than symbolic as they were used at times to hack dead fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan. It wasnt complex, and had it been several one-off events, a guy chopping a head off it wouldnt be such a failure. This meant there was less oversight over their missions and less accountability if things went wrong. His forehead was gruesome, he later told Esquire magazine. By Emily Cochrane. They didnt know it, but Roberts was already dead, shot at close range in the head shortly after his helicopter departed the mountaintop. McRaven, who did not respond to requests for comment, also held a meeting with a large group of senior officers under his command and said that SEAL Team 6 had effectively made lying to protect a teammate an honorable course of action, according to a person who attended the meeting. These names are on this rock because these people conducted themselves in a way that did not bring glory to the teams. The SEALs with Hyder came out and separated into two groups. War is an adrenaline rush. The operation, code-named ANSTRUTHER, an homage to Norgroves Scottish heritage, was authorized by British Prime Minister David Cameron. After the raid, the White House struggled to describe the exact circumstances of bin Ladens death. ONeill was soon removed from his role as a team leader in Red Squadron after he was observed publicly bragging in Virginia Beach bars that he was the man who shot bin Laden. He was told that the photographs were part of SEAL Team 6s greatest hits of terrorists killed since 9/11. Later that night, after Blue Squadrons assaulters had successfully carried out the raid, killing three or four armed men and recovering weapons and explosives, Vasely and Slabinski conducted a walk-through of the compound. The request was approved and Slabinski was promoted. But what happened during Objective Bull, the assault on the convoy in the Shah-i-Kot Valley, has never been previously reported. Then, in October 2010, SEAL Team 6 set out to rescue a British aid worker named Linda Norgrove, who had been taken captive in Afghanistan. In the book, Bissonnette implies that he was directly behind Red just below the third floor when bin Laden was shot, and was one of the next two SEALs who entered bin Ladens bedroom. War is awful and its human to go too far, but this isnt one time. The prevailing narrative about SEAL Team 6 in news coverage, bestselling books, and Hollywood movies is unambiguously heroic; it centers on the killing of Osama bin Laden and high-profile rescue missions. It was a mess.. Officially known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, SEAL Team 6 is today the most celebrated of the U.S. military's special mission units. They ransacked the compound for documents and media for intelligence, left the survivors inside, and returned to Jalalabad air base with the body. Tactically, there was little about the upcoming raid that was complex. In ONeills account, he did not see Red fire his shots at bin Laden because he was looking back down the stairs for reinforcements. Every one of us is issued and carries a suppressed weapon, said one former senior SEAL, referring to the Heckler & Koch assault rifles, equipped with silencers, issued to the operators. We just slaughtered those dudes. After describing one particular fighter who from a distance had resembled Osama bin Laden, Slabinksi continued: To this day, weve never had anything as good as that. Hyder, who was the ground force commander for the Kandahar operation, was cleared in an after-action review of the shooting. In 2008, tensions began to rise between SEAL Team 6 and the CIA over operations in Afghanistan. It will mark a sea change in the sea service's clandestine and close-knit cadre of SEALs, a secretive and elite military force that rarely testifies against each other, especially in war crimes. If you have multiple incidents where the ground force commander pulls the trigger on a deployment, you have a total breakdown of operational tactics, said one retired SEAL leader. Early in the war, the SEALs mission was to hunt down al Qaedas senior leaders, who had largely vanished into Pakistan, but now Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the leader of JSOC, extended the mission to target the Taliban, whoalong with al Qaeda weremoving back and forth across the Pakistani border with impunity. In 2010, when Slabinski was up for a promotion at the command, SEAL Team 6 leaders conducted two internal inquiries before making a decision. The operation commanded high-level interest because Norgrove, though in Afghanistan as an aid worker for DAI, an American NGO, secretly worked with Britains MI-6. He assumed it was a twisted act of misplaced revenge over the previous days events specifically, the gruesome death of Hyders teammate Neil Roberts. He continued to move towards us, Hyder said. It was then that both Bissonnette and ONeill hung back on the stairway. Several of Bissonnettes teammates later informed their superiors that he had lied about his actions. The operator accused of the attempted beheading has experienced difficulties as a result of his service. He even has his own line of clothing. Its important that you put this stuff in context, the CIA officer said. But according to multiple SEAL sources, the incident did in fact occur. He took Robertss death hard. We talked about it and 35 guys nodded their heads saying this is not who we are. The war was entering its seventh year and had become intractable, with no clear path to victory. The SEALs were now going after low-level Taliban financiers and shadow governors. Canoeing was just one of several acts of mutilation frequently carried out by SEALs. SEALs were given wide berth as long as they could explain why they made the decision to shoot an unarmed person. His superiors believed he had become unglued over the 2007 deployment. You guys want to play withthose rules? OK. Although this former SEAL acknowledged that war crimes are wrong, he understood how they happen. The publication came as a surprise to the Pentagon because Bissonnette had failed to clear it as required. When Heath, who witnessed Hyders actions, reported them to his team leader in the presence of other members of the team, several of the guys turned and walked away, said the retired SEAL. Bissonnettes helicopter crashed into bin Ladens side yard. Several months after the bin Laden raid, in October 2011, SEAL Team 6 held its annual stump muster, a reunion of current command members and their families, as well as past leaders and senior operators. on about your day, ask yourself: How likely is it that the story you just read would have been produced by a different news outlet if The Intercept hadnt done it? (The Intercept is withholding the name of the operator, who believed he was following an order. All of us were upset. Theformer SEAL Team 6 leader told me that for the units operators, the greatest punishment was being kicked out of the unit in front of their peers. In his interview with the Times, Slabinski asserted that it was he who had witnessed the operator slashing at the dead fighters throat, saying, It appeared he was mutilating a body. Slabinski portrayed himself as trying to police his men and said that he gave them a very stern speech. He claimed to the Times that he told his men, If any of you feel a need to do any retribution, you should call me. Slabinski says nothing in the Times story about Vasely ordering him to investigate the scene or the remark about a head on a platter. But they are a great way of being part of a team. Red encountered and shot bin Ladens son just before the second floor landing, and the SEALs following behind him fanned out into the hallways and rooms on the second floor to search and secure the area. It didnt make a difference. Red could see bin Laden bleeding out from his chest wound but he still had not entered the bedroom. McRavens other directive required a more extensive post-operation review to document and justify combatant deaths. In the summer of 1992, he left SEAL Team 8 and checked in to DEVGRU. But hidden behind the heroic narratives is a darker, more troubling story of revenge ops, unjustified killings, mutilations, and other atrocities a pattern of criminal violence that emergedsoon after the Afghan war began and was tolerated and covered up by the commands leadership. Inside a heated tent, as many as 40 SEAL Team 6 operators asked themselves how they wanted to treat their fallen enemies. The CIA team on the operation was angry because they had lost an opportunity to interrogate the suspected militants. Hyder was new to SEAL Team 6, but as the ranking officer on the ground during that operation, he was technically in charge. The operation commanded high-level interest because Norgrove, though in Afghanistan as an aid worker for DAI, an American NGO, secretly worked with Britains MI-6, according to four U.S. military and intelligence sources. Then, as two of bin Ladens eldest daughters began to scream, Red quickly corralled themat the doorway, a move considered heroic by other SEALs on the mission. Iraq was a target rich environment, and Wyman allowed us to be more aggressive. According to several former SEAL Team 6 leaders, it was JSOC commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal who ordered the increased operational tempo and pushed SEAL Team 6, including Howard, to conduct more frequent raids to help wipe out the insurgency in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He ordered a pause in most SEAL and JSOC operations over a two-week period in February 2009. A drone flying above the convoy showed the occupants of three vehicles were heavily armed. Illustrations: Attila Futaki, Colorist: Greg Guilhaumond, Matthew Cole[emailprotected]theintercept.com@matthewacole, The SEALs believe that they can handle the discipline themselves, thats equal to or greater than what the criminal justice system would give to the person.. The squadrons commanding officer recorded it on a cellphone. SEAL Team 6 patches. In March 2013, Esquires profile of ONeill portrayed him as a humble quiet professional who after 16 years in the Navy would no longer have health insurance and was otherwise a downtrodden American hero. Should they seek revenge for Roberts? Earlier that evening, general officers from the Joint Special Operations Command had scrambled the SEALs after watching a Predator drone video feed of a man they suspected was bin Laden set off in a convoy of three or four vehicles in the Shah-i-Kot Valley, where al Qaeda forces had fortified themselves. When he finally entered the bedroom, alone, bin Laden was standing uninjured, a weapon nearby, his wife in front of him like a human shield. One of Bissonnettes teammates then put his gun through the front door, which was now slightly ajar, and shot the gunman in the head. Both should have remained on the second floor. Several of us confronted the officers, said one former noncommissioned officer who tried to stop the criminal behavior. Bissonnette and his team then moved to the main house. Howard, who has since risen through the ranks and is currently a rear admiral, was twice rejected by his superiors for advanced SEAL Team 6 training. The sniper team leader acted under his own emergency assault authority to kill the pirates as soon as all three could be taken out at the same time. And then we had to address a very important question, how do you get the guys heads straight to mitigate any retaliation for Fifi? Less than 48 hours before Objective Bull commenced, a small reconnaissance group from SEAL Team 6s Red Team had tried to establish an observation post on the 10,000-foot peak of Takur Ghar, overlooking the Shah-i-Kot valley, where forces from the Armys 10th Mountain Division intended to strike the last redoubt of al Qaeda forces massed in Afghanistan. The code is a conspiracy of silence, one that many more are complicit in than just the SEALs themselves. Thats whats wrong with my community, the former SEAL Team 6 leader told me. By the rules of engagement he became a legitimate target and it was supported. When he first arrived at Dam Neck, operators in the unit who had served in Vietnam warned him that war crimes and battlefield atrocities hung like a cloud over the entire unit even if only one SEAL had participated. 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