"Correcting the 'Fairy Tale'" of Abbottabad

More from former SEAL commander Chuck Pfarrer's pre-publication promotional interviews for "SEAL Target Geronimo."  In an interview with The Daily Caller, Pfarrer reiterates his claims that:
1- The SEALs were able to fast-rope onto the roof rather than crashing in the courtyard;
2- The SEALs killed Osama bin Laden at the outset of the raid, rather than after working their way up to the top floor after a 45 minute firefight; and
3- Says the shooting was legtimate self-defense in the attempt to capture him rather than a "kill mission" as previously suggested.

Again, Pfarrer may be 100% correct in all the details of the mission, but these do not strike me as significant revisions to the previously established timeline of events.  Why would Administration officials or anyone else leaking details of the mission say the helicopter crashed beforehand instead of successfully allowing the SEALs to fast rope onto the roof?  Where has anybody said the firefight -- even if it did go bottom-to-top rather than top-to-bottom -- said it took 45 minutes?  Pfarrer's point regarding self-defense versus extra-judicial killing is valid, but it is not at all clear that such a "kill order" was given.  In fact, in the Leon Panetta interview with Time Magazine The Daily Caller links to as confirmation that the raid was a "kill mission," Panetta explicitly says that bin Laden would be captured if he tried to surrender:

The authorities we have on Bin Laden are to kill him. And that was made clear. But it was also, as part of their rules of engagement, if he suddenly put up his hands and offered to be captured, then-- they would have the opportunity, obviously, to capture him. But that opportunity never developed.

Panetta's references to authorities to kill bin Laden are a recognition that the Saudi headed an organization in a declared state of war with the United States and hence a legitimate target of military force, not a description of the rules of engagement for the raid.  

Pfarrer makes a legitimate point when he notes the Administration's decision to immediately announce bin Laden's killing "rendered moot all of the intelligence that was gathered from the nexus of al-Qaida.  The computer drives, the hard drives, the videocassettes, the CDs, the thumb drives, everything.  Before that could even be looked through, the political decision was made to take credit for the operation."  This is true, but it should be noted that the Bush administration similarly announced the capture of Saddam Hussein and killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi within twenty-four hours as well, and those were not operations in which a U.S. helicopter was left behind 130 miles inside a sovereign country.  It would certainly have been preferable to keep quiet regarding this operation until the intelligence could be fully exploited, but it is also incredibly unrealistic.

Again, I look forward to reading Pfarrer's book, and hope that given the author's contacts it proves the most accurate book regarding the Abbottabad raid.  But as badly as the Administration handled the post-raid explanations of what happened (including revealing who conducted the mission, altering the probability of success briefed to the President, shifting stories about bin Laden's actions etc.), the tenor of the pre-publication claims doesn't seem to match the significance of the actual revelations.