9/11 Museum's new exhibit chronicles the search for Osama Bin Laden
NEW YORK - On Thursday morning, Patricia Reilly fought back tears as she looked at a replica of the fingerprints used to confirm the death of Osama Bin Laden. Her thoughts were of her sister, Lorraine Mary Lee, who died in the south tower of the World Trade Center.
"It's important to tell the story of the brave men and women who were committed to finding Osama Bin Laden and to bringing him to justice," Reilly said.
The 9/11 Memorial and Museum in Lower Manhattan held a special preview of a new exhibit entitled Revealed: The Hunt for Bin Laden, a narrative time table that chronicles the decade-long search to bring the terrorist leader to justice.
"We wanted to make sure, with this exhibition, that everybody knew the middle of the story," Jonathan Alger, the exhibit's designer, told FOX 5 NY. "We all know the beginning of the story. We all know the end of the story. But what we don't know is all that time that went by between the 9/11 attack and the apprehension of bin laden in the end."
The middle of the story is fleshed out with more than 60 artifacts and replicas that have been declassified by the FBI and CIA. These include an actual IED from Afghanistan, a suicide manual given to Bin Laden followers, as well as handcuffs that belonged to Port Authority Police Officer Donald James McIntyre, recovered by a fellow officer who survived the attacks and swore to use them in McIntyre's honor.
"He actually, in another part of the world, used those handcuffs to handcuff an al Qaeda operative," Alger said.
The highlight of the exhibit is the actual model of Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that Navy SEAL Team 6 members trained on and studied in the months leading up to the raid that killed him in May 2011.
"Something that actually has never before been seen by the public. But it was seen by one particular individual and that was President Obama," museum president Alice Greenwald said. "This was the model that was physically brought to the White House to brief the president on the raid."
Revealed: The Hunt for Bin Laden opens to the public on Nov. 15.
National September 11 Memorial and Museum | 180 Greenwich Street, New York, N.Y. 10007 | 212-312-8800 | 911memorial.org
---------
Get breaking news alerts in the FOX5NY News app. It is FREE!
---------