Al-Qaeda leader Bin Laden 'dead'. Again.

[Jan Klimkowski]

From http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDet...=5/14/2011

Did a Pakistani official sell info to CIA to settle in the West?

[URL="http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintWriterName.aspx?ID=1&URL=Wajid%20Ali%20Syed"]Wajid Ali Syed
[/URL] Saturday, May 14, 2011

WASHINGTON: Did a Pakistani intelligence official sell the information about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden to the US last year to get millions of dollars and relocate to a western country with a new non-Pakistani passport? All those seeking to know the full facts of the Osama episode are looking for an answer to this question.

President Barack Obama would not have agreed to go forward with the mission to kill Osama bin Laden had it not been for intense pressure from CIA Director Leon Panetta, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, administration sources have revealed.

The advocates of the mission had "reached a boiling point", because President Obama, hesitated for months and kept delaying the final approval. This delay was because of a close aide who suggested that this could damage him politically.

According to these sources, Administration officials were frustrated with the president's indecisiveness and his orders not to carry out the mission in February. President Obama was "dragged kicking and screaming" to give the green light for the operation in the last week of April. By then, the US military and other high-level officials were so determined to launch the operation that they did not want to give the president the opportunity to delay or to call it off. President Obama reluctantly approved to go forward with the operation only if the CIA head agreed to take all the blame in case the mission failed. The planning for the operation underscores the deep divisions in the Obama administration, with President Obama and a close aide, Valerie Jarrett, procrastinating on making a decision and high-ranking officials and members of the cabinet pressing him to go ahead on the other. The chief architect of the plan to "take bin Laden out" was CIA Director Leon Panetta.

Carsten - thanks for posting. This is an important article, and needs to be considered as we analyze what really happened.....

My own initial contribution to that analysis is that I categorize such articles as Political Porn, for Inside the Beltway reporters. They enable political correspondents (lobby correspondents in UK terms) to concoct narratives about infighting amongst our politicians.

Such "political infighting" narratives strike me as fundamentally diversionary.

During the 2nd Gulf War there were plenty of stories about infighting between Dick Cheney and Colin Powell, with Dubya Bush cast as the Prez being forced to choose.

Any deep political analysis of Powell's career reveals his role as the officer chosen to cover up My Lai, who was later posted to the Golden Triangle with his "white son" and muscle, Richard Armitage.

I regard all that Cheney versus Powell stuff as political theatre, and largely untrue. A few squabbles around tactics or timing perhaps. But no real disagreement about geopolitical goals.

So, I regard the Wajid Ali Syed article with tales of infighting between those around Obama, and describing Obama as weak and procrastinating, as largely political fable to give the West Wing correspondents some subject matter.

I find the following especially incredible:

By January of 2011 there was a high degree of certainty that bin Laden was in the house. In early February, Panetta suggested that the US should move on bin Laden. But Gates and Petraeus were determined to avoid the "boots on the ground" strategy at all costs. CIA chief Panetta was in favour of an invasion. But President Obama balked on the advice of Valerie Jarrett, a close aide.

What?!?!?

DCIA wanted to INVADE Pakistan to "get Bin Laden"?

That strikes me as fundamentally implausible.