Source: ABC News -----> http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/201...-the-note.html
By MICHAEL FALCONE and AMY WALTER
Last night the country heard from President Obama about the brave actions of U.S. military and intelligence forces who tracked and killed terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, putting an end to a painful chapter in American history marred by the deaths of nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001.
It was also the ultimate example of a campaign promise kept.
“We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda,” then presidential candidate Barack Obama vowed at a debate with Sen. John McCain in October 2008. “That has to be our biggest national security priority.” http://bit.ly/jDByb4
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ABC’s Jake Tapper reports: Sources tell ABC News that in March President Obama authorized the development of a plan for the U.S. to bomb Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound with two B2 stealth bombers dropping a few dozen 2,000-pound JDAMs (Joint Direct Attack Munitions) on the compound. But when the president heard the compound would be reduced to rubble he chose not to pursue that option. That would mean there would be no evidence bin Laden was dead to present to the world -- no DNA evidence, as the administration anticipates it will have. Plus all 22 people in the compound including women and children, plus likely many neighbors would be killed. The president wanted proof. And he wanted to minimize collateral damage.
So, instead the president authorized this incredibly daring and difficult operation, scheduled for a time of “low loom” -- little moon luminosity -- so the US helicopters could enter into Pakistan low to the ground and undetected. The operation was authorized Friday morning. It was originally planned for Saturday night but on Friday, for weather reasons, it was pushed to Sunday. The bombing plan was one of many multiple possible courses of action presented to the president in March and then refined over the course of the next several weeks.
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Source: ABC News -----> http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpu...time-line.html
While he publicly downplayed the importance of capturing or killing bin Laden, on June 2, 2009 President Obama had signed a memo to the director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, stating “in order to ensure that we have expanded every effort, I direct you to provide me within 30 days a detailed operation plan for locating and bringing to justice Usama Bin Ladin…”
Beginning in September of 2010 the CIA began to work with the president on a set of assessments that led him to believe that in fact it was possible that bin Laden may be located at that compound. The president was was told it contained “a key al Qaeda facilitator appeared to be harboring a high-value target.”
The president directed action to be taken “as soon as he concluded that the intelligence case was sufficient.”
By mid February, though a series of “intensive” meetings at the White House and with the president, administration officials determined there was a “sound intelligence basis” for pursuing this “in an aggressive way” developing course of action in pursuit of bin Laden at this location. By the middle of March the president began a series of national security meetings that he chaired to pursue again the intelligence that had been developed and a course of action.
The president chaired no fewer than five national security council meetings on this topic – on March 14th, March 29th, April 12th, April 19th and April 28th.
“When a case had been made that this was a critical target we began to prepare this mission in conjunction with the US military,” a senior administration official said.
At 8:20am on Friday, April 29th in the Diplomatic Room, President Obama met with National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, White House chief of staff William Daley, White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan and deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough and gave the order for the operation.
Officials said only a very small group of people knew about the operation beforehand. “That was for one reason and one reason alone, we believed that it was essential to the security of the operation and our personal,” an official said. “Only a very small group of people inside our own government knew about this operation in advanced.” Shortly after the raid, U.S. officials contacted senior Pakistani officials to brief them on the results of the raid. They also contacted a number of close partners and allies in the world.
Originally Posted by Mike Nguyen
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