Bin Laden, CIA Women Are the Focus of New Documentary 'Manhunt' (VIDEO)
The CIA women who spent years searching for Osama bin Laden and aided in his death are the subject of a new HBO documentary entitled "Manhunt." The film tells "the real story" of the 20-year hunt for bin Laden, which includes a team of women who worked to find him, according to director Greg Barker.
"Zero Dark Thirty" focused on the story of "Maya," a CIA operative whose work played a major role in bin Laden's death. While the role of "Maya" was allegedly based on just one woman's work, Barker's documentary notes that there was no one woman responsible for bin Laden's capture. Instead, it was a team of women known as the "Sisterhood."
"Manhunt" includes interviews with several retired CIA agents including Nada Bakos, Cindy Storer, and Barbara Sude. Their search for bin Laden began long before the 9/11 attacks, which put an international spotlight on the leader of al-Qaida.
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"They said we were obsessed crusaders, overly emotional," Storer says in the film. "Men throw chairs, women cry. We were borderline obsessed, but I thought it was for a good reason." She began following bin Laden's behavior back in 1990, "when al-Qaida was denying its existence even to its friends."
"It wasn't the sexiest job," Bakos told Yahoo! News."Women have patience and perseverance; they weren't looking for the sexy payoff. This wasn't a job people were being promoted to. They were really looking at it as in the defense of our country."
"The night of the raid, I just had this gut feeling that there was a deeper, darker, richer story other than just the story of the raid itself," Barker told The Washington Times. "It's about an intelligence story that spoke to the decisions made in secret inside our government that led us to Abbottabad."
"Zero Dark Thirty" won critical acclaim for its portrayal of the events leading up to bin Laden's death, but there was also an equal amount of criticism for that portrayal. While Bakos told The Times that she found the movie "entertaining," she thought it "looked more like a law-enforcement investigation."
"Intel analysis takes years, and lots of people and lots of data– and the culmination of all that initial analysis in the '90s was what helped lead to Abbottabad. It wasn't the last 90 seconds on the court that made all the difference. In addition, the fact that it was more of a team effort than that," Bakos said.
"Manhunt" airs all month long on HBO.
Watch the trailer for "Manhunt" HERE:
