The mistake here was not having a tight enough lie as cover for a covert operation. I assure you the CIA and White House learned from that mistake four years ago.
Rushing to publish unsubstantiated anonymous information that other investigators politely but publicly disagree with is hardly the path to Truth. A better piece published in a more reputable publication, however, might be.
‘‘It’s always possible,’’ Bowden told me. ‘‘But given the sheer number of people I talked to from different parts of government, for a lie to have been that carefully orchestrated and sustained to me gets into faked-moon-landing territory.’’ Other reporters have been less generous still. ‘‘What’s true in the story isn’t new, and what’s new in the story isn’t true,’’ said Peter Bergen of CNN, who wrote his own best-selling account of the hunting and killing of bin Laden, ‘‘Manhunt.’’
... Filkins, who covered Afghanistan and Pakistan for The Times before moving to The New Yorker, spent about a week running the tip by sources inside the Pakistani government and military with little success. ‘‘It wasn’t even that I was getting angry denials,’’ Filkins told me. ‘‘I was getting blank stares.’’
The sooner truth comes out - the faster we learn from our mistakes.