Tidbit
On the way up to SF, listened to Fresh Air interview with Peter Bergen who wrote a book about the Bin Laden raid. Apparently when they first got the intel regarding the courier who eventually lead them to the compound in Abbottabad they felt 70-30 sure it was OBL. But in the next two weeks, the closer they examined, the less sure it seemed, dropping to about 50-50 odds when Obama decided to strike. Interestingly, one of his national security advisors said to Obama, "there was greater circumstantial evidence for WMDs in Iraq than there is that OBL is in this compound." Something to think about.
3 comments:
Indeed - it makes me think Obama knows the difference between invading a one acre compound and invading a 170,000 sq mile country.
Additionally, although I didn't hear the interview, there is only one National Security Advisor - his name is James Donilon. I do not believe it was James Donilon who made the comment to which Bergan is referring.
i suppose it should say counsel b/c he has a counsel of advisors on such matters...was this a really confusing component of the blog post?
but i agree, the stakes of going in are a lot less, but i think the point remains that matters of intelligence are murky and the leftist stance of "bush lied" has always been wrong and in fact, hampered the better arguments for not going into iraq.
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