SELF PROCLAIMED OBL SHOOTER BEING LOOKED AT FOR CLASSIFIED LEAKS

ROBERT O'NEILL SELF PROCLAIMED SHOOTER OF OBL IN POSSIBLE TROUBLE FOR LEAKS

Robert O’Neill, the Navy SEAL who has publicly come out to take credit for shooting Osama bin Laden in that infamous raid, is being investigated for potentially leaking classified information.

O’Neill was one of the members of SEAL Team Six that raided bin Laden’s compound in 2011, and last month he went public and gave an extensive interview with Fox News. A former Navy SEAL on Fox, at the time, had criticized O’Neill for both going public and for divulging classified information.

And it’s on that latter point where O’Neill, according to a new Daily Beast report, could be in trouble, because the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating allegations that he “revealed classified information to persons not authorized to receive such information.”

They are investigating whether those allegations have any merit.

NFTOS

STAFF WRITER

Former Colin Powell Chief Outs G.W. Bush Saying

Former Colin Powell Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson told MSNBC’s Ed Schultz on Wednesday night that President George W. Bush wasn’t interested in bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. “I don’t think they really wanted to get bin Laden,” Wilkerson said.

One of the more staggering developments to emerge in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s elimination has been the attempt by many on the right to shoehorn George W. Bush into the narrative of how the terrorist mastermind behind 9/11 was successfully tracked down and ultimately killed. Soon after Obama’s announcement of Bin Laden’s death, House Majority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) attempted to spin the accomplishment as a continuance of Bush’s “vigilance,” Sarah Palin thanked the former president without even mentioning Obama, the news shows on the Sunday following the event featured no less than five former Bush administration officials (versus only two from the Obama administration), and Bush himself reportedly declined an invitation to a commemorative ceremony at the World Trade Center because he reportedly felt like he did not receive enough credit for Bin Laden’s death.

But attributing Bin laden’s death to “vigilance” on Bush’s part is a stretch (to put it kindly) as an analysis and a timeline by ThinkProgress demonstrate. Bush’s missteps included not focusing on Bin Laden prior to 9/11, undermining the search for Bin Laden by abandoning the fight in Tora Bora, and above all, by shifting resources away from a focus on al Qaeda and into the massive folly that was the invasion of Iraq. Watch a ThinkProgress video documenting Bush’s failures:



NFTOS

George Bush Getting Credit Where Its Not Due

ANALYSIS: Bush’s Lackluster Hunt For Bin Laden.



Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb

 Politico reports that supporters of George W. Bush are “irked” that the former president isn’t getting more credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden, despite the droves of conservatives lawmakers and pundits who have been rushing to give Bush equal credit as Obama.

But this praise for Bush relies on rewriting history to obscure the fact Obama re-prioritized the hunt for Bin Laden after Bush had largely abandoned the effort to focus on Iraq.

While many conservatives are triumphantly replaying Bush’s September 2001 declaration that he would find Bin Laden, just months later, by Bush’s own account, he was unconcerned about the terrorist mastermind. Asked about the hunt for Bin Laden at a March, 2002 press conference, Bush said, “I truly am not that concerned about him. I am deeply concerned about Iraq.” “I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you,” Bush added.

By 2006, the trail for Bin Laden had gone “stone cold” and Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes said Bush told him that hunting Bin Laden was “not a top priority use of American resources.” (Indeed, there was a flailing war in Iraq to fight.)

That year, it was revealed that the administration had shuttered the CIA’s Bin Laden unit in late 2005. As the New York Times reported at the time, the move reflected a shift in resources to Iraq:

In recent years, the war in Iraq has stretched the resources of the intelligence agencies and the Pentagon, generating new priorities for American officials. For instance, much of the military’s counterterrorism units, like the Army’s Delta Force, had been redirected from the hunt for Mr. bin Laden to the search for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed last month in Iraq.

But Bush’s biggest misstep in the Bin Laden hunt occurred years before, in the early days of the war in Afghanistan. As a 2009 Senate Foreign Relations Committee report found, the Bush administration blew a critical opportunity to capture Bin Laden in 2001. Bin Laden was wounded and on the run, but top Bush national security officials rejected repeated pleas for reinforcements from commanders and intelligence officials fighting the terrorist leader in the caves of Tora Bora, despite the availability of resources:

Fewer than 100 American commandos were on the scene with their Afghan allies and calls for reinforcements to launch an assault were rejected. Requests were also turned down for U.S. troops to block the mountain paths leading to sanctuary a few miles away in Pakistan. The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army, was kept on the sidelines. Instead, the U.S. command chose to rely on airstrikes and untrained Afghan militias.

Even when his own commanders and senior intelligence officials in Afghanistan and Washington argued for dispatching more U.S. troops, [Commanding Gen. Tommy] Franks refused to deviate from the plan.

The report “removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora,” but that decisions made by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his deputies, and other top administration officials allowed Bin Laden to escape.

The consequence of this missed ooportunity are tremendous. As Lt. Col. Reid Sawyer, the director of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, told NPR yesterday, “if bin Laden had been killed in Afghanistan eight years ago in the caves of Tora Bora, al-Qaida might well have died with him. Now the organization is diversified enough it could weather bin Laden’s death — and hardly miss a beat.”

Moreover, as Rumsfeld himself acknowledged, Bush’s extra-legal torture and rendition policies did not help capture Bin Laden. Enhanced interrogation techniques did not work. Bush ordered one final push to capture Bin laden shortly before he left office, but this effort too was unsuccessful.

UPDATE: Rumsfeld Flip-Flops: Now Says Harsh Interrogation Of Detainees Was ‘Critically Important’ In Bin Laden’s Death


NFTOS

BIN LADEN….DEATH BY HEAD SHOT

President Obama authorized the development of a plan for the U.S. to bomb Osama bin Laden’s compound in March, but later called it off because the raid would have likely inflicted many civilian causalities and destroyed Bin Laden’s body, thus eviscerating proof Obama needed to ensure the world he had killed the terrorist leader.

The body of Bin Laden will be handled “in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition,” according to a White House official. In Islam, bodies must be buried within 24 hours, and U.S. officials confirmed that Bin Laden’s body was buried at sea. Handling the body according to custom is “something we take very seriously,” the official said.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney congratulated President Obama on Osama bin Laden’s death, calling it “a victory for the United States and a tremendous achievement.” President Bush joined Cheney in congratulating Obama and the U.S. forces, marking the moment as a “momentous achievement” that deserves “our everlasting gratitude.”

Afghan President Hamid Karzai reiterated calls for quicker pullout of American troops from Afghanistan, citing Osama bin Laden’s death near the Pakistani capital as proof that “the war on terror is not in Afghanistan.” Other Afghan politicians said “the Americans have achieved their goal” in bin Laden’s death and thus “have no reason to stay.”

The Taliban vowed terror attacks in revenge for the death of Bin Laden. “We will do it by carrying out attacks in Pakistan and America,” Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan said. There was a bomb attack at a Pakistani mosque near the site of Bin Laden’s killing, although it was unclear whether the attack was committed in response to the killing of the terror leader.

Stocks and futures both gained upon the announcement of bin Laden’s death, while the dollar also snapped a nine-day slump and oil prices dropped to a two-week low. “This is a positive development in the campaign against terrorism,” said one market strategist. “In the last 10 years, bin Laden’s presence has been a serious threat to global stability.”

Arab Americans and Muslim Americans in the nation’s Arab American capital of Dearborn, Michigan, celebrated upon hearing the news of Bin Laden’s death. “The world is definitely a better place without the patron of all terrorists,” said Imam Hassan Al-Qazwini, the head of the city’s largest mosque.

Yesterday, Sohaib Athar, a 33-year-old computer programmer who lives in Abbottabad, Pakistan, became, in his own words, “the guy who live-blogged the Osama raid without knowing it.” Throughout the night, Athar (@ReallyVirtual) tweeted about the unusual events unfolding in his city with messages like, “Go away helicopter – before I take out my giant swatter,” not realizing until much later what had occurred.

And finally: Revelers who descended on the plaza in front of the White House late last night to celebrate the death of Osama bin Laden were joined by several celebrities, including Friends star David Arquette, several Capitan Americas, and Spider Man, who could be seen climbing the trees in front of the executive mansion.

Great job Seal Team 6!!! You have made your country proud!

NFTOS