Osama bin Laden hideout 'worth far less than US claimed'

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

Osama bin Laden's house, described by the US government as a $1m (£605,000) mansion, is in fact worth no more than $250,000 say property professionals in Abbottabad, the town where he was killed.

The revelation is the latest of several erroneous descriptions about the nature of Bin Laden's hideout – and the manner of his death – which have dogged the White House in recent days.

On Tuesday US officials retracted claims that Bin Laden was armed when killed, and that he had used one of his wives as a human shield.

Descriptions of Bin Laden's hideout have also been prone to exaggeration. After Sunday night's dramatic raid by US Navy Seals, a senior Obama administration official told reporters that the property, an "extraordinarily unique compound" in an "affluent suburb", was valued at around $1m.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/04/osama-bin-laden-hideout-worth

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[Old and In the Way]

2. Anyone who used Google Earth to see the compound could see

that the story had some serious flaws. It wasn't 8X the size of surrounding buildings in the neighborhood and it certainly wasn't a million dollar property, unless there were solid gold bathroom fixtures. Why some of these exagerations? Perhaps to deflate initial reactions from the ME audiences? Who knows? Who cares? OBL is dead and I hope it provides the catalyst we need to extricate ourselves from the quagmire we've been stuck in for the past 8 years. Time to turn the page and start a new chapter that works to rid ourselves on our strategic dependence on ME oil and the negative impact it has on our domestic economy.

[Lifelong Protester]

3. There are 'property officials' in Abbotabad??

Ba-da-bum!

[PBS Poll-435]

5. You obviously have not been watching "Flip That Compound" on A&E

It is on Mondays, I believe.

[groundloop]

4. OMG, if administration is wrong about this maybe Bin Laden isn't dead either !!!

:sarcasm:



Some people need to do a better job of sticking to speaking facts and not speculating or exaggerating. (Of course that "senior administration official" could have been a mail clerk for all we know).