Excerpt: "Let's give credit where credit is due: President Obama took out bin Laden. Bush had nothing to do with it."
File photo, Osama bin Laden. (photo: AP)
05 June 11
he Republicans criticized President Barack Obama for being indecisive, for delegating and for being weak on foreign policy. Obama proved them wrong by personally taking charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. He picked one of four plans to neutralize the al Qaeda leader (arguably the most difficult one), then followed through from command central, where he watched the raid in real time.
Now Republicans say George W. Bush deserves the credit. They say it was the intelligence network Bush set up and the enhanced interrogation (read torture) he authorized that led us to bin Laden. Nonsense. Bush had eight years to capture or kill him and failed. Indeed, it's not clear he ever really tried to find bin Laden.
Right after the 9/11 attacks - when all commercial flights were grounded - Bush allowed the bin Laden family to flee the United States without even being questioned by the FBI! Six months later he told the press: "I don't know where he [bin Laden] is.... I just don't spend that much time on it." Worse, Bush refused to deploy the additional troops requested when bin Laden was trapped in Tora Bora, Afghanistan. Then, in 2005, Bush actually shut down the only unit expressly created to find the man behind the death of 3,000 Americans.
Let's give credit where credit is due: President Obama took out bin Laden. Bush had nothing to do with it.
