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Political Hotsheet
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Obama monitored Osama bin Laden attack in real time
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House, May 1, 2011. Please note: a classified document seen in this photograph has been obscured.
/ White House/Pete SouzaPresident Obama and members of his national security team monitored the attack against Osama bin Laden on a real-time basis, White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said today.
"It was probably one of the most anxiety-filled periods of time, I think, in the lives of the people who were assembled here yesterday," Brennan said in a White House press briefing. "The minutes passed like days, and the president was very concerned about the security of our personnel."
The president and his team were able to monitor the sequence of events from the very start of the operation through its completion, Brennan said. It took the team of CIA officers and Navy SEALs carrying out the operation no more than 40 minutes to kill bin Laden in the compound in Abbottabad, which is close to Pakistan's capital of Islamabad.
Brennan said the president and his team had "real time visibility into the progress of the operation," but would not go into details about what sort of technology was used.
"It was clearly very tense, a lot of people holding their breath, and there was a fair degree of silence as it progressed as we would get the updates," Brennan said. "And when we finally were informed that those individuals who were able to go in that compound and found an individual that they believe was bin Laden, it was a tremendous sigh of relief that what we believed and who we believed was in that compound actually was in that compound and was found."
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"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him." G.W. Bush, 9/13/01
-------JUST 6 MONTHS LATER------
"I don't know where Bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." G.W. Bush, 3/13/02
Every POST left by the Whitewing *Ahem, Rightwing bozo's saying how the credit was all due to Bush just REALLY tickles my heart. Just to know how bad and how deep it must sting you knowing that history will surely show 2 things clearly.
#1). President Bush presided over Americas worst attack and also its Worst EVER debt - DIRECTLY after it's highest EVER surplus.
#2). President Obama Presided over the justice brought to our attackers and created the economic situations in his first & then SECOND term that returned America back to it's former glory before W Bush was appointed by the supreme court. HAHAHAHAHAHA! SUUUUUUCK IT DOWN YOU SORE BUTTFACED LOSERS! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
"He kept his poker face throughout the weekend.
On Saturday, Obama donned a tuxedo for the White House Correspondents' Association annual dinner and lobbed a few barbs at Donald Trump after having endured weeks of attacks by the prospective Republican presidential candidate over whether Obama is U.S.-born and eligible to be president. He poked fun at the host of NBC's "The Celebrity Apprentice" for not having serious issues to keep him up at night."
So, to those who keep writing posts after post saying that Obama does not deserve any credit at all, you really need to look at their faces in the photographs as they were all watching the events in real time. Obama was making decisions, presidential decisions. Just as a modern day General makes tense military decisions he is just as important as the guy fighting hand to hand combat.
Obama had to make sure the intel was real. He had to make sure the Seals located and got Bin Laden. He had to be sure that Bin Laden would be present. He took a chance to angering the Pakistani government. He had to gamble that Pakistani Special forces wouldn't retaliate. What happened if it went belly up? What it wasn't him but another son? What would happened if Bin Laden had breifly left the building? And yet, No Drama Obama kept his cool and no one was the wiser.
Which would say KSM withheld this information under waterboarding.
The two best part of this operation is Obama used Bush Intel gained by enhanced interrogation from prisoners at Gitmo and Secret Detention Facilities overseas and used the Bush Doctrine of unlimited reach by U.S. forces by not informing the target nation of our intentions to strike in their country.
The Irony.
I thought that the Bush doctrine was :
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
I'm glad to know that President Obama was monitoring the whole thing and was not reading "My Pet Goat".
So you are cool with Obama using information from waterboarding to kill Bin Ladin?
Good. You have taken your first step into reality.
FOUR MORE YEARS!!!
He's not...thanks to a decision made by our President.
Well done Mr. President.