By Larry Shaughnessy, CNN Pentagon Producer
WASHINGTON (CNN) – At least one former U.S. Navy SEAL is worried that a book about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden could jeopardize future special operations missions.
John McGuire left the service as a first class petty officer after 10 years in the Navy, much of it as a SEAL.
“We have something in the military called OPSEC, which is operational security, and people can piece tiny pieces of information together to get a picture they don’t need to have,” McGuire told CNN on Thursday. “We know too much as it is.”
“When people give away secrets and talk about these exploits like this, connections can be drawn together to put them and our security in harm’s way,” McGuire said.
The new book by former SEAL Matt Bissonnette, published under the pseudonym Mark Owen, is titled “No Easy Day.”
It goes step by step through the SEAL team’s training and practicing for the May 2011 raid, the assault itself and the aftermath. It tells a heart-pounding story, but nowhere near as violent or explosive as a typical Hollywood movie.
He has not read the book yet, but McGuire said the details of the bin Laden episode may not seem new but that is not the issue.
“It’s one thing to assume to know what we do, it’s another thing to confirm it first hand,” he said.
Bissonnette, a chief petty officer when he left the Navy, writes that he will give the majority of proceeds from the book to military support groups.
“I would see that as a noble thing,” McGuire said, “but if it harms other guys….”
The book is one of several accounts about the operation to have surfaced.
Obama administration officials said on Thursday that the Pentagon is expected to inform Bissonnette that he has violated secrecy agreements and that both he and his publisher could be forced to forgo all royalties.
