“While the Bin Laden operation has been much scrutinized, the story of how a tiny team of government lawyers helped shape and justify Mr. Obama\u2019s high-stakes decision has not been previously told. The group worked as military and intelligence officials conducted a parallel effort to explore options and prepare members of SEAL Team 6 for the possible mission.<\/p>\n
The legal analysis offered the administration wide flexibility to send ground forces onto Pakistani soil without the country\u2019s consent, to explicitly authorize a lethal mission, to delay telling Congress until afterward, and to bury a wartime enemy at sea. By the end, one official said, the lawyers concluded that there was \u201cclear and ample authority for the use of lethal force under U.S. and international law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some legal scholars later raised objections, but criticism was muted after the successful operation. The administration lawyers, however, did not know at the time how events would play out, and they faced the \u201cunenviable task\u201d of \u201cresolving a cluster of sensitive legal issues without any consultation with colleagues,\u201d said Robert M. Chesney, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin who worked on a Justice Department detainee policy task force in 2009.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe proposed raid required answers to many hard legal questions, some of which were entirely novel despite a decade\u2019s worth of conflict with Al Qaeda,\u201d Mr. Chesney said.”<\/p>\n