On August 27, 2010, three CIA officers met with then-CIA Director Leon Panetta. Their secret session revealed a courier with deep Al Qaeda ties who had been tracked to a three-story, heavily protected fortress at the end of a dead end street in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Without ever having to say the name bin Laden, there exists a mutual understanding that finally, after nearly a decade, they may have just found the world’s most wanted man.
In Countdown bin Laden, celebrated journalist and anchor of "Fox News Sunday" Chris Wallace delivers a thrilling account of the final 8 months of intelligence gathering, national security strategizing, and meticulous military planning that leads to the climactic mission when SEAL Team Six closes in on its target. Wallace reveals new information collected from in-depth interviews with more than a dozen central figures—including Leon Panetta, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and the special operator who killed bin Laden. Personal accounts from families who fell victim to 9/11 and relatives of SEAL Team Six are brought to life in Wallace’s narrative, published on the 20th anniversary of the most consequential terrorist attack in American history.
Join us as Chris Wallace brings us fresh reporting about the race to apprehend and bring to justice the architect of 9/11.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on September 14th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.
Chris Wallace
Anchor, "Fox News Sunday"; Author, Countdown bin Laden: The Untold Story of the 247-Day Hunt to Bring the Mastermind of 9/11 to Justice
In Conversation with Kirk Hanson
Senior Fellow and Former Executive Director, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University