There have been innumerable references in the wake of the death of Osama Bin Laden to Barack Obama’s 2007 assertion that he would go into Pakistan to kill the al-Qaeda leader with or without Islamabad’s permission.
What most have forgotten is that the saber-rattling threat was crafted specifically to counter a dovish gaffe.
Anyone who thought Barack Obama’s post-Bin Laden national security swat would diminish opposition to closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay received bad news today.
Some fascinating reporting from Tim McGirk today on bin Laden’s fifth wife, who was living at the Abbotabad compound with her husband at the time of the raid that killed him. She is said to have been shot in the calf after rushing the Seals that burst into room where the al-Qaeda leader was holed up.
A few key points from the story:
More Bush administration officials associated with the program of compliance-inducing “enhanced interrogation techniques” are coming out of the woodwork to claim a measure of credit for Osama bin Laden’s death.
U.S. intelligence officials estimate that Osama bin Laden had been living in the $1 million Abbottabad compound where he was killed for up to six years, according to Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein. “That’s what we estimate at this stage,” Feinstein told TIME. Bin Laden “could have been there for five or six years.”
Reuters’ Mark Hosenball is reporting that the U.S. special forces that raided Osama bin Laden’s compound Sunday were under orders to kill the terrorist leader, not capture him. But an administration official tells TIME that the report is not accurate.
“No U.S. forces go in and, if someone surrenders to them, will kill them,” the …
Thompson reports:
About two dozen SEALs and CIA enablers swooped down on the compound in a pair of choppers, leaving the second pair lurking nearby in case they were needed.
The U.S. troops came under fire almost immediately, giving the U.S. forces all the justification they needed to amp up their firepower.
As the news of Osama bin Laden’s death moves from exhilarating novelty to accepted reality, one group in the U.S. government will emerge as key to the win: the Central Intelligence Agency. From the earliest identification of a …
When American troops dragged Saddam Hussein from his spider hole in Dec. 2003, the political implications seemed huge: Pundits quickly asked whether George W. Bush had just clinched reelection, whether the anti-war candidate Howard Dean was now “toast”, and whether public support for the Iraq war might surge. But in the end, Saddam’s …
Updated at 2:30 a.m.
Nearly 10 years after he launched the deadliest domestic attack in U.S. history, al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden has been killed by American forces. Late Sunday evening, President Barack Obama addressed …
It was never going to be easy for Obama to watch Robert Gates walk out of the Pentagon and back into private life. Over two and a half years, Gates has provided impenetrable political air cover for a series of extremely difficult national security decisions, from the surge in Afghanistan to repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Gates’ …
On a day when Joe Biden clearly expresses the White House view that Libya should be a primarily European-led NATO responsibility, former United Nations ambassador and unabashed neocon hawk John Bolton is warning that President Obama’s unwillingness to unleash shock and awe there is leading to a dangerous “quagmire.”
Whereas Les Gelb …
