A Review On The Legal Case That Was Prepared For The Killing Of Osama Bin Laden

The house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where Bin Laden was killed in a raid by Navy SEAL Team 6.

New York Times: How 4 Federal Lawyers Paved the Way to Kill Osama bin Laden

WASHINGTON — Weeks before President Obama ordered the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in May 2011, four administration lawyers developed rationales intended to overcome any legal obstacles — and made it all but inevitable that Navy SEALs would kill the fugitive Qaeda leader, not capture him.

Stretching sparse precedents, the lawyers worked in intense secrecy. Fearing leaks, the White House would not let them consult aides or even the administration’s top lawyer, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. They did their own research, wrote memos on highly secure laptops and traded drafts hand-delivered by trusted couriers.

Just days before the raid, the lawyers drafted five secret memos so that if pressed later, they could prove they were not inventing after-the-fact reasons for having blessed it. “We should memorialize our rationales because we may be called upon to explain our legal conclusions, particularly if the operation goes terribly badly,” said Stephen W. Preston, the C.I.A.’s general counsel, according to officials familiar with the internal deliberations.

WNU Editor: For the legal beavers out there .... this is a must read.

Update: Bin Laden Memos Distort the Laws of War (Noah Feldman, Bloomberg).