The compound where al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden was caught and killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Anjum Naveed/AP
The federal worker who most deserves a bonus
Agent involved in the bin Laden raid earns the equivalent of one third of his salary.
A federal agent at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency involved in capturing Osama bin Laden received a bonus equivalent to one-third of his normal annual salary, reports Russ Ptacek of Washington's 9 News Now. The disclosure, which appears to be a result of nice investigative work by the local Washington news team, is also a timely counterargument to complaints about out-of-control worker compensation.
In the Friday report, the White House confirmed to Ptacek that the agent was rewarded for doing the "satellite imagery interpretation and intelligence" work to track bin Laden. The imagery work is said to be fundamental to the construction of a model of bin Laden's compound that was used in the White House at "senior level briefings." It also snagged the agent the Presidential Rank Award, which doles out one-time bonuses to federal employees of as much as $63,000. "That enabled us to pinpoint, find, and conduct the raid on Osama bin Laden, which is rather amazing," Senior Executives Association spokeswoman Carol Bonosaro, who represents senior government officials, said about the agent's work. "I think it's unfortunate that the American people don't know what they do."
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