Osama bin Laden ‘resisted’ assault but was unarmed, U.S. officials say
By Greg Miller and and Joby Warrick,
WashPost
Tuesday, May , 8:20 PM
The White House retreated Tuesday from its most provocative assertions about the operation to kill Osama bin Laden, acknowledging that the al-Qaeda leader was neither armed nor hiding behind a female “human shield” when U.S. commandos fatally shot him during a predawn raid.
The disclosures put the Obama administration on the defensive about whether it had exaggerated elements of earlier accounts for propaganda gain. At the same time, additional details surfaced Tuesday that depict a mission launched amid far greater political and operational uncertainty than had been revealed.
CIA Director Leon Panetta, who supervised the operation, said in interviews that U.S. intelligence agencies never had photographs or other proof that bin Laden was living at the compound in Pakistan that was targeted. Panetta told Time magazine that analysts were only 60 percent to 80 percent confident that bin Laden would be found.
“We never had direct evidence that he in fact had ever been there or was located there,” Panetta said in a separate interview with “PBS NewsHour.” “The reality was that we could have gone in there and not found bin Laden at all.”
(More here.)
WashPost
Tuesday, May , 8:20 PM
The White House retreated Tuesday from its most provocative assertions about the operation to kill Osama bin Laden, acknowledging that the al-Qaeda leader was neither armed nor hiding behind a female “human shield” when U.S. commandos fatally shot him during a predawn raid.
The disclosures put the Obama administration on the defensive about whether it had exaggerated elements of earlier accounts for propaganda gain. At the same time, additional details surfaced Tuesday that depict a mission launched amid far greater political and operational uncertainty than had been revealed.
CIA Director Leon Panetta, who supervised the operation, said in interviews that U.S. intelligence agencies never had photographs or other proof that bin Laden was living at the compound in Pakistan that was targeted. Panetta told Time magazine that analysts were only 60 percent to 80 percent confident that bin Laden would be found.
“We never had direct evidence that he in fact had ever been there or was located there,” Panetta said in a separate interview with “PBS NewsHour.” “The reality was that we could have gone in there and not found bin Laden at all.”
(More here.)
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