HE HAD A SCAPE GOAT IN CASE THE BIN LADEN RAID FAILEDA recently disclosed memorandum from then-CIA Director Leon Panetta shows that the president's celebrated derring-do in authorizing the operation included a responsibility-escape clause: "The timing, operational decision making and control are in Admiral McRaven's hands. The approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the President. Any additional risks are to be brought back to the President for his consideration. The direction is to go in and get bin Laden and if he is not there, to get out."
Which is to say, if the mission went wrong, the fault would be Adm. McRaven's, not the president's.
HE DESTROYED ANY CHANCE TO USE THE INTELLIGENCE THAT WAS GATHERED.The only reliable weapon that any administration has against the current threat to this country is intelligence. Every operation like the one against bin Laden (or the one that ended the career of Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S. citizen and al Qaeda propagandist killed in a drone attack last September) dips into the reservoir of available intelligence. Refilling that reservoir apparently is of no importance to an administration that, after an order signed by the president on his second day in office, has no classified interrogation program—and whose priorities are apparent from its swift decision to reopen investigations of CIA operators for alleged abuses in connection with the classified interrogation program that once did exist.
AND YOU WONDER WHY THEY CALL HIM IBAMA"
I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority . . . even as
I continued our broader effort. . . . Then, after years of painstaking work by
my intelligence community
I was briefed . . .
I met repeatedly with
my national security team . . . And finally last week
I determined that
I had enough intelligence to take action. . . . Today, at
my direction . . ."
