Zero Dark Thirty poster

Zero Dark Thirty Quotes

"The greatest manhunt in history."

R 2012 · 2h 37m
70
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25 quotes
Zero Dark Thirty
Limitations of remote operations in warfare
Maya You can't run a global network of interconnected cells from a cave.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Zero Dark Thirty
Determined Resolve in Pursuit of Justice
Maya I'm going to smoke everyone involved in this op and then I'm going to kill ].
[[Osama bin Laden]
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Zero Dark Thirty
Confrontation and Power Dynamics in Interrogation
Dan Right now, this is about you coming to terms with your situation. It's you and me, bro. I want you to understand that I know you, that I've been studying you for a very long time. I could have had you killed in Karachi. But I let you live so you can I could talk.
Ammar You beat me when my hands are tied. I won't talk to you.
Dan Life isn't always fair, my friend. Did you really think that when we got you, I'd be a nice fucking guy?
Ammar You're a mid-level guy. You're a garbage man in a corporation. Why should I respect you?
Dan And you're a money man. A paperboy! A disgrace to humanity! You and your uncle murdered three thousand innocent people. I have your name on a five-thousand dollar transfer via Western Union to a 9/11 hijacker; and you got popped with 150 kilograms of high explosives in your house! And then you DARE question me?!
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Zero Dark Thirty
Determination in the Pursuit of Justice
Maya * To members of the ] ].
[[w:SEAL Team Six|DEVGRU; [w:United States Navy SEALs|SEAL team]
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Zero Dark Thirty
Focus on Immediate Threats Over Historical Leads
Maya I really need to talk to you about beefing up our surveillance operation on the caller.
Joseph We don't have a surveillance operation on the caller. Someone just tried to blow up ] and you're talking about some facilitator that some detainee said seven years ago might be working with al-Qaeda?
[[w:Times Square|Times Square]
Maya He's the key to bin Laden.
Joseph I don't fucking care about bin Laden. I care about the next attack. You're gonna start working on the American al-Qaeda cells. Protect the homeland.
Maya Bin Laden is the one who keeps telling them to attack the homeland. If it wasn't for him, al-Qaeda would still be focused on overseas targets. If you really want to protect the homeland, you need to get bin Laden.
Joseph This guy never met bin Laden. This guy's a freelancer working on the fucking Internet. Nobody's even talk to bin Laden in four years. He's out of the game. He may well even be dead. He might as well be fucking dead, but you know what you're doing. You're chasing a ghost while the whole fucking network grows all around you.
Maya You just want me to nail some low-level Mullah-crack-a-dulla so you can check the box on your resume that says while you were in Pakistan you got a real terrorist. BUT THE TRUTH IS YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND PAKISTAN & YOU DON'T KNOW AL-QAEDA! Either give me the team I NEED to follow this lead or the other thing you're gonna have on your resume is being the first station chief to be called before a Congressional Committee FOR SUBVERTING THE EFFORTS TO CAPTURE OR KILL Bin Laden.
Joseph You're fucking out of your mind.
[pause]
Maya I need 4 techs and safe house in ] and 4 techs and safe house in Peshawar. Either send them out, or send me back to D.C and explain to the director why you didn't.
[[w:Rawalpindi|Rawalpindi]
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Zero Dark Thirty
The Uncertainty of Abu Ahmed's Identity
Joseph Bradley Well, that's good. You still don't...
Maya Yeah, we don't know if Abu is on the outside of the network — part of a series of cutouts and dead drops — or if he has a direct connection to bin Laden. Does bin Laden invite him into the living room and hand him a letter directly? Or is Abu just the last guy in a long line of couriers, so that's why everybody knows him?
[cutting him off]
Joseph Bradley That's not all you don't know. You don't have his true name, and you don't have a clue where he is.
Maya We know that he's important. The fact that everybody's heard of Abu Ahmed but nobody will tell me where he is suggests that.
Joseph Bradley Maybe. Detainees could withhold his location for any number of reasons. Perhaps they don't know; perhaps this Abu is just a cover story and he's really a fucking unicorn. The withholding doesn't reveal what you want it to, does it?
Maya No.
Joseph Bradley And if you did find him, you don't know that he'd be with bin Laden.
Dan We don't know what we don't know.
Joseph Bradley What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
Dan It's a ].
[[w:Tautology|tautology]
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Zero Dark Thirty
Determined Search for the Sayeed Family's Contact
Maya Move heaven and earth and bring me this fucking Sayeed Family's phone number.
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Zero Dark Thirty
Interrogation Insights and Unexpected Connections
Maya After we kept you awake for 96 hours, you gave us names of some of your brothers and saved the lives of a lot of innocent people.
[to Ammar, referencing the [[w:2004 Khobar massacre|2004 Khboar massacre]
Dan Which is the smart thing to do, you're starting to think for yourself. Eat up! You earned it!
Dan So you flew via Amman to Kabul to hang out with your uncle? Mukhtar.
Amar How did you know that?
Dan I told you man, I know you. Alright, you got me - flight manifests. It must've been pretty fucked up for you guys after 9/11. What did you do after the invasion and before you went back to ]?
[[w:Peshawar|Pesh]
Ammar After 9/11 we had to choose: fight, to protect our turf - or run.
Dan You chose to fight.
Ammar I wanted to kill Americans. We tried to get into Tora Bora, but the bombing was too high. We couldn't cross.
Maya Sorry, who is the "we" in that sentence?
Dan I can go eat with some other dude and hang you back up to the ceiling.
[casually, but annoyed]
Ammar ], ], and ].
[[w:Abu Hamza Rabia|Hamza Rabia; [w:Midhat Mursi|Khabab al-Masri; [w:Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti|Abu Ahmed]
Maya Who's Abu Ahmed? I've heard of the other guys.
Ammar He was a computer guy with us at the time. After Tora Bora, I went back to Pesh - as you know - and he went North, I think, to Kunar.
Maya What's his family name?
Ammar Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti
Maya Abu Ahmed means father of Ahmed," it's a kunya. Ammar, I know the difference between a war name and an Arabic name.
Dan She got you there, dude.
Ammar I swear to you both: I don't know his family name. I would have never asked him something like that. It's not how my uncle worked. My uncle told me he worked for bin Laden. I did see him, once, about a year ago, in Karachi. He read us all a letter from the Sheikh.
Maya A letter?
Dan What did it say?
Ammar It said: "Continue the jihad. The work will go on for a hundred years.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Zero Dark Thirty
Questions Surrounding Bin Laden's Protection and Location
Steve They're gonna ask: "If bin Laden is at the end of this rainbow, is the Pak military with him?
[in CIA conference room, where he and Maya are about to meet with the CIA Director and his Deputies]
Maya The question isn't "Are the Paks protecting bin Laden?" The question is "Would he allow himself to be protected by the Paks?" I mean, why would he trust them? He tried to kill ].
[[w:Pervez Musharraf|Musharaf; CIA Director and his Deputies walk in]
CIA Director Go ahead.
Steve If you take a right out of ] and drive about forty-five minutes north, you'll find yourself here, in ]. A middle class community, some ex-military, not particularly interesting to us. Except we did find this compound, which is unique. We got a sixteen foot wall around the entire perimeter, the windows are blacked out. It's a fortress.
[gesturing over a map of Pakistan; [w:Islamabad|Islamabad; [w:Abbottabad|Abbottabad]
CIA Director Can't you put a camera somewhere, in the trees, to get a look into the main house?
George It will probably be discovered.
CIA Director We have to get a look into the house. Alright, what's this? This cluster of buildings down here?
George The PMA — the ]. It's their ].
[[w:Pakistan Military Academy|Pakistan Military Academy; [w:West Point|West Point]
CIA Director And how close is that to the house?
George About a mile.
Maya 4,221 feet. It's close to eight-tenths of a mile.
CIA Director Who are you?
Maya I'm the motherfucker who found this place, sir.
CIA Director Really. I want to know more about who's inside this house by the end of the week.
[pause; pause; CIA Director and his Deputies leave, leaving only Maya and Steve in the room]
Steve Motherfucker?" Good.
[sarcastically]
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Zero Dark Thirty
Assessment of Security Patterns in Afghanistan
Jessica A farmer on the Afghan border near Tora Bora reports a diamond shaped pattern in the hills, tall male in the center of the diamond, flanked by four guards. It's consistent with UBL's movements.
Jeremy That's supposed to be his Royal Guard?
Maya That's pre-9/11 behavior.
Jessica We don't have any reason to believe he's changed security tactics.
[irritated]
Maya We invaded Afghanistan. That's a reason.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Zero Dark Thirty
Assessing Certainty in Intelligence Operations
CIA Director I'm about to go look the President in the eye, and what I'd like to know, no fucking bullshit, is where everyone stands on this thing. Now, very simply, is he there, or is he not fucking there?
Deputy Director We all come at this through the filter of our own past experiences. I remember "Iraq WMD" very clearly, I fronted that, and I can tell you the case for that was much stronger than this case.
CIA Director A fuckin yes or a no.
Deputy Director We don't deal in certainty, we deal in probability. I'd say there's a sixty percent probability he's there.
The Wolf I concur. Sixty percent.
George I'm at eighty percent. Their ] is what convinces me.
[[w:Operations security|OPSEC]
CIA Director You guys ever agree on anything?
Dan Well, I agree with sixty, we're basing this mostly on detainee reporting and I spent a bunch of time in those rooms. Who knows? I'd say it's a soft sixty, sir. I'm virtually certain there's some high value target there, I'm just not sure it's bin Laden.
CIA Director This is a cluster-fuck, isn't it?
Jeremy I'd like to know what Maya thinks...
Deputy Director We're all incorporating her assessment into ours...
Maya A hundred percent he's there. Okay, fine, ninety-five percent because I know how certainty freaks you guys out, but it's a hundred.
[interrupting]
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Zero Dark Thirty
Confronting Harsh Realities and Betrayal
Dan Can I be honest with you? I am bad fucking news. I'm not your friend. I'm not gonna help you. I'm gonna break you. Any questions?
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Zero Dark Thirty
Frustration with Unnecessary Equipment and Procedures
Maya Quite frankly, I didn't even want to use you guys, with your dip and your Velcro and all your gear bullshit.
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Zero Dark Thirty
Question About Bin Laden's Last Sighting
Dan Where's the last time you saw bin Laden?
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Zero Dark Thirty
The Greatest Manhunt in History
Taglines The greatest manhunt in history.
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Zero Dark Thirty
Briefing on Osama bin Laden's Location
General I actually tried to kill this program a couple of times. They've gone through an initial round of testing, and they have excellent radar defeat - we just haven't tested them with people in them yet. You'll notice these stealth panels, similar to what we use on the ]. The rotors have been muffled with decibel killers. It's slower than a ] and lacks the offense. But it can hide.
[about stealth helicopters; [w:Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit|B2; [w:Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk|Black Hawk]
Justin Excuse me. Can I ask a question? What do we need this for in Libya? ]'s anti-air is virtually non-existent.
[[w:Muammar Gaddafi|Gaddafi]
George Gentlemen, can I have your attention? My name is George, I run the Af-Pak division at ], and I'm primary on this for the ]. This is a title fifty operation. Some of us have worked together before. This is a good one. Maya, do you want to brief them?
[[w:Counterterrorism Center|CTC; [w:Central Intelligence Agency|Agency]
Maya There are two narratives about the location of Osama bin Laden. The one that you're most familiar with is that UBL is hiding in a cave in the Tribal Areas, that he's surrounded by a large contingent of loyal fighters. But that narrative is pre-9/11 understanding of UBL. The second narrative is that he's living in a city. Living in a city with multiple points of egress and entry, and with access to communications so that he can keep in touch with the organization. You can't run a global network of interconnected cells from a cave. We have located an individual we believed, based on detainee reporting, is bin Laden's courier. He's living in a house in Abbottabad, Pakistan. And we assess that one of the other occupants of the house is UBL.
Justin Excuse me. You got an intel source on the ground?
Maya No.
Justin No? Okay, so how do you know it's bin Laden? Cause the truth is, we've been on this op before, it was 07, and it wasn't bin Laden, and we lost a couple of guys.
Maya Totally understand, Bin Laden uses a courier to interact with the outside world. By locating the courier, we've located bin Laden.
Patrick That's really the intel? That's it?
Maya Quite frankly, I didn't even want to use you guys, with your dip and your velcro and all your gear bullshit. I wanted to drop a bomb. But people didn't believe in this lead enough to drop a bomb, so they're using you guys as ], on the theory that if bin Laden isn't there, you can sneak away and no one will be the wiser. But bin Laden is there, and you're going to kill him for me.
[[w:Animal sentinels|canaries]
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Zero Dark Thirty
Confidence in Conviction About Osama bin Laden
Justin So Patrick, be honest with me. You really believe this story? I mean, no offense, no offense, I don't. But... Osama bin Laden?
[to Maya; to Patrick]
Patrick Yeah.
Justin What part convinced you?
Patrick Her confidence.
[motions toward Maya]
Justin That's the kind of concrete data point I'm looking for. I'll tell you buddy, if her confidence is the one thing that's keeping me from getting ass-raped in a Pakistani prison I'm gonna be honest with you, bro. I'm cool with it.
[smirks]
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Zero Dark Thirty
Inappropriate Humor in the Workplace
Dan You don't mind if my female colleague checks out your junk?
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Zero Dark Thirty
Urgent Call for Accountability and Action
George I want to make something absolutely clear. If you thought there was some secret cell somewhere working al-Qaeda, I want you to know that you are wrong! This is it. There's no working group coming to the rescue. There's nobody else hidden away on some other floor. This is just us. And we are FAILING. We're spending billions of dollars. People are dying. We're still no closer to defeating our enemy. They attacked us on ] in 98, by ] in 2000, and from the ] in 2001. They murdered three thousand of our citizens in cold blood, they've slaughtered our forward deployed. And what the fuck have we done about it? What have we done? We have twenty leadership names and we've only eliminated four of them. I want targets! Do your fucking jobs! Bring me people to kill!
[[w:1998 United States Embassy bombings|land; [w:USS Cole bombing|sea; [w:September 11 attacks|air]
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Zero Dark Thirty
A Tense Exchange in Zero Dark Thirty
Dan * To Abu Faraj al-Libbi
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Zero Dark Thirty
A Unique Take on Friendship
Dan How about a V10 Lamborghini. How's that for friendship?
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Zero Dark Thirty
The Limits of Strength and Resilience
Dan It's cool, that you're strong and I respect it, I do. But in the end, everybody breaks, bro. It's biology.
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Zero Dark Thirty
Analyzing Suspicious Behavior in Communication
Larry This guy you're obsessed with, what's his name again?
Maya Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti is the nom de guerre. His true name, we think, is Ibraheem Sayeed. His family lives in Kuwait.
Larry Wasn't it, like, eight brothers and a million cousins that we know about? Anyone could be calling home. It's not like he's saying "Hey mom, it's me, the terrorist.
Maya Over the course of two months he's called home from six different pay phones, from two different cities, never using the same phone twice. And when his mother asked him where he was, he lied. He said that he was in a place in the country with bad cell reception - implying he was in the Tribals - but he was in Peshawar. I'm sorry, but that's not normal guy behavior. That's tradecraft.
Larry Maybe he just doesn't like his mom? Look, if he talks about an operation, or refers to anything remotely fishy, I'll get on him, okay?
Maya No. Not okay. Look, Abu Ahmed is too smart to tip his hand by talking about ops on the phone: he works for bin Laden. The guys that talk about ops on the phone don't get that job. A lot of my friends have died trying to do this. I believe I was spared so I could finish the job.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Zero Dark Thirty
Understanding and Negotiation in Intelligence Operations
Maya I want you to understand that I know you. I have been following you for a long time. I chased you in Lahore. I had you picked up instead of killing you because you're not a violent man and you don't deserve to die.
[to Hassan Ghul]
Hassan Ghul Thank you.
Maya But you do have deep ties to al-Qaeda that I want to ask you about before you get sent to your next location, which might be Israel. However, depending on how candid you are today, I may be able to keep you in Pakistan.
Hassan Ghul What do you want to know?
Maya I'm going to ask you a series of questions based on your knowledge of al-Qaeda and your position as key financier for the organization.
Hassan Ghul I have dealt with the ], I have no wish to be tortured again. Ask me a question, I can answer it.
[[w:Mukhabarat|Mukhabarat]
Maya What can you tell me about ].
[[w:Atiyah Abd al-Rahman|Atiyah Abd al-Rahman]
Hassan Ghul He works for ]. He's in charge of military tactics.
[[w:Ayman al-Zawahiri|Zawahiri]
Maya In what context have you heard the name Abu Ahmed?
Hassan Ghul He works for Faraj and bin Laden. He is his most trusted courier.
Maya What makes you say that?
Hassan Ghul He brought me many messages from the Sheikh.
Maya Where did you last see him, and where is he now?
Hassan Ghul You will never find him.
Maya Why is that?
Hassan Ghul Even I couldn't find him. He always contacted me out of the blue. He is one of the disappeared ones.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Zero Dark Thirty
A Desire for Normalcy Amidst Chaos
Dan You know, I think I've seen too many guys naked. It's got to be over a fucking hundred at this point. I need to go and do something normal for a while.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.