Maybe the SEALs wouldn't have been able to restrain themselves, but in my experience, when people know that very high-up people in their chain of command are watching their actions carefully, they generally make sure that it looks like everything they're doing is by the book. These guys knew that everyone up to the President was watching, and that what they did would be not just reported, but studied.

I don't really buy the idea that they would have used a drone strike as a cover story. Surely they would have realized that sending helicopters into a populated town would attract local attention - and that's exactly what happened - a guy saw the helicopters and reported it on Twitter. Even if they wanted the Americans to kill him in Pakistan, if they had Bin Laden under guard and were cooperating with the Americans they could have just driven the SEALs to the house, had them kill bin Laden quietly, and then driven away without attracting attention. Or they could have moved Bin Laden to someplace remote and had the Americans do it there.

And the business with the Saudis knowing about Bin Laden also seems strange. Essentially what Hersh is saying is that two American allies would have had to have known Bin Laden's location for years without the US discovering it. I can imagine the Pakistanis keeping it a secret (at least for as long as they did) but the Pakistanis coordinating with another government and receiving payments from that government without the US finding out? Not to mention the fact that there wasn't a disruption in the relationship with Saudi Arabia comparable to the disruption in the relationship with Pakistan.

The official story (at least with the modifications I described above) just seems a lot simpler and more plausible.