Osama Bin Laden

U.S. Officials Interviewed OBL's Wives, White House Confirms

Susan Crabtree | May 13, 2011, 2:45PM

Osama Bin Laden

The White House confirmed Friday that Pakistan has allowed U.S. officials to interview three of Osama bin Laden's wives, all of whom were living with him at his Abbottabad compound before a Navy SEAL team stormed it and killed bin Laden nearly two weeks ago.

In the aftermath of the U.S. raid on the hideaway, U.S. lawmakers and officials have accused at least some elements of the Pakistani government of helping harbor bin Laden and have been watching Pakistan's reaction to his killing closely. The wives, one of whom was injured during the raid, were taken into custody by Pakistani security forces after the SEALs left the compound.

White House spokesman Jay Carney was tight-lipped about the interrogation aside from confirming that it had occurred. He would not say who questioned the women or whether they cooperated.

"I can't characterize the interaction except to say that we have had access," Carney said, "And we obviously appreciate the cooperation we've received from the Pakistani government."

The White House and the Pentagon have not said exactly when this week U.S. officials questioned the wives. The Pakistani Taliban on Friday took credit for twin suicide bombings that killed at least 80 people outside a paramilitary training center in Shabqadar, Pakistan earlier in the day. A Taliban spokesman said the explosions were in retaliation for the killing of bin Laden.

Carney said the U.S. government remains in a "state of high vigilance" since the raid.

"We take very seriously the fact that while al Qaeda is weakened, it is not dead," Carney said.

President Obama plans to deliver a major speech on the events in the Middle East and North Africa and U.S. Policy in the region Thursday at the State Department.

From Carney's descriptions, the speech will be "fairly sweeping and comprehensive" focused on the democratic uprisings in the region that have taken place since January and how the U.S. has responded to the upheaval.

"[The President] has always viewed the future of the region through the prism of democratization and the yearning of the people...in the region for greater political freedom, participation in their government, desire for responsive governments that address their grievances," Carney said. "I'm sure he will call as he has in the past on the governments in the region to respond to those demands through peaceful political dialogue."

Obama plans to focus on the irony he sees in some leaders' violent crackdowns in the name of stability when those brutal actions are only leading to great instability in the country and the region, Carney told reporters.

At one point during the press briefing, Carney was asked whether he had information about Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's whereabouts and reports that he was no longer in Tripoli and is likely injured.

"Nothing I can share," Carney replied.

Andy Card

GOP's Tortured Logic: How We Got Osama Bin Laden

Brian Beutler | May 3, 2011, 8:42AM

Former Vice President Dick Cheney and Former President George W. Bush.

Like so many memes that persist in politics, this one started on the Internet. The morning after President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan, conservatives started crowing that credit should be given to President George W. Bush -- specifically, for having the foresight and courage to torture the people who provided the initial scraps of intel that ultimately led the CIA to a giant compound just north of Islamabad.

The most prominent of these conservatives was Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who took to Twitter to ask sardonically, "Wonder what President Obama thinks of water boarding now?

About two hours later, the Associated Press published a brief story claiming that the CIA obtained the initial intelligence it needed to find bin Laden from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- the so-called mastermind of 9/11 -- and his successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi at CIA black sites in Poland and Romania.

Those secret prisons, which the Obama administration contends to have abandoned, were the facilities where Mohammed and al-Libi were waterboarded. There, the detainees supposedly identified by nom de guerre a courier who would years later be located by American intelligence officials, and lead them to bin Laden's compound.

"The news is sure to reignite debate over whether the now-closed interrogation and detention program was successful," the AP wrote. "Former president George W. Bush authorized the CIA to use the harshest interrogation tactics in U.S. history. President Barack Obama closed the prison system."

There's just one problem. The key bit of intel wasn't acquired via torture, according to a more fleshed out version of the same report.

But the myth provided a brief opening. Thus have Republicans constructed a version of events by which they -- and Bush in particular -- deserve some of credit for bin Laden's death. Not all of it. Indeed they have by and large acknowledged Obama's role, and congratulated him on it. And most have not been as brazen as King or the Tea Party Express in attributing the success of the mission to Bush's interrogation policies. But Bush, they argue, played a big part as well, akin to the husband who loosens the lid to a Mason jar only to watch his wife open it effortlessly.

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Osama Bin Laden

'Minutes Passed Like Days' As WH Watched Osama Bin Laden Operation Unfold

Susan Crabtree and Ryan J. Reilly | May 2, 2011, 2:25PM

[Late Update: The White House has backed off some of the details of John Brennan's account. More here.]

The President and his national security team spent Sunday afternoon and evening huddling in the West Wing of the White House filled with anxiety while they followed in real time the covert operations of an elite team of Navy Seals penetrating Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan and killing him with shots to the head.

"It was probably the most anxiety-filled periods of times," John Brennan, a chief counterterrorism adviser to President Obama, told reporters Monday in a White House briefing. "The minutes passed like days, and the President was very concerned about the security of our personnel."

TPM SLIDESHOW: Behind The Scenes As Operation Against Bin Laden Unfolded

"It was clearly very tense with a lot of people holding their breath," Brennan recalled, obviously still soaking in the full weight of the raid and the impact of bin Laden's death on the global war on terror. "There was a great degree of silence as we would get the updates. We were finally informed, and there was a tremendous sigh of relief -- that what we believed about the compound and who we believed was in the compound" were in fact true.

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Osama Bin Laden

WH Says Bombing Of OBL Compound Considered, But Never Authorized

Susan Crabtree | May 2, 2011, 9:55AM

President Barack Obama

More than a month before U.S. military forces launched a deadly raid on Osama bin Laden's compound Sunday, President Obama ordered the development of multiple military plans aimed at killing or capturing the notorious fugitive leader of al Qaeda.

Obama's national security team began drawing up several different options back in March, including plans to bomb the Abbottabad compound located 35 miles north of Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, according to administration officials.

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Osama Bin Laden

U.S. Authorities Homed In On Osama For Last Nine Months

Susan Crabtree and Ryan J. Reilly | May 2, 2011, 12:02AM

Osama bin Laden

It was the best kept and most closely guarded secret for the last nine months: a select handful of U.S. national security and administration officials tracked a high-value courier for Osama bin Laden to a dusty dirt road leading to a compound 35 miles north of Islamabad, Pakistan's capital.

After months of intelligence gathering and meetings at the highest levels of the U.S. government, a small team of Navy Seals Sunday raided the compound, engaged in a firefight and ultimately killed bin Laden, the notorious leader of al Qaeda who had evaded capture and death since masterminding the 9/11 attacks that killed almost 3,000 people.

TPM SLIDESHOW: Osama Bin Laden: 9/11 Mastermind, Longtime U.S. Enemy Killed In Pakistan

The CIA pinpointed the compound in August and first informed President Obama about the intelligence in September of last year. As evidence mounted in mid-February that bin Laden and his family were living in the compound, the President and the National Security Council began holding a series of "intensive" meetings about a covert military strike aimed at killing him, according to administration officials.

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David Petraeus

Panetta To Move To Pentagon, Petraeus To CIA

Susan Crabtree | April 27, 2011, 8:52AM

Leon Panetta and David Petraeus

President Obama plans to tap CIA Director Leon Panetta to head the Defense Department to replace outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and David Petraeus will succeed Panetta at the CIA, according to media reports.

Petraeus, 58, currently serves as the commander of allied forces in Afghanistan and previously led operations in Iraq from 2006 to 2008.

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CIA

White House: Obama Has Yet To Decide Whether To Arm Libyan Rebels

Susan Crabtree | March 30, 2011, 6:46PM

President Barack Obama

Amid reports that President Obama had signed a secret order authorizing covert support for Libyan rebels, the White House issued a sweeping statement Wednesday evening saying the President has made no decision about supplying arms to the opposition.

White House spokesman Jay Carney first said he would not comment on intelligence matters, but went on to reiterate Obama's recent assertions that he had yet to decide whether to provide arms to the opposition or "to any group in Libya."

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Barack Obama

Obama: U.S. 'Slowly Tightening The Noose' Around Qaddafi

Susan Crabtree | March 11, 2011, 3:25PM

President Barack Obama

President Obama says he is "absolutely" concerned about Libyan Leader Muammar Qaddafi prevailing against opposition rebels but said the U.S. and its allies are "slowly tightening the noose" around him in an effort to push the dictator from power.

"I've not taken any options off the table at this point," Obama said in Friday press conference. "...We've moved as swiftly as any international coalition has ever moved to take sanctions...I have not foreclosed any options."

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James Clapper

Graham Calls For Ousting DNI Clapper After a Series of Stumbles

Susan Crabtree | March 10, 2011, 6:34PM

National Intelligence Director James Clapper

The Director of National Intelligence is a thankless job. Little wonder why the key administration position, which oversees coordination among the nation's 16 intelligence agencies, has turned over four times in its five-year existence.

On Thursday, President Obama's DNI James Clapper had a particularly rough day of it.

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Dianne Feinstein

Feinstein Slams Middle East Intelligence, Urges Caution On No-Fly Zone

Susan Crabtree | March 8, 2011, 4:06PM

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, harshly criticized the CIA and the rest of the intelligence community for failing to forecast the uprising in the Middle East and warned the White House not to intervene in Libya without international support.

"Our intelligence, and I see it all ... was woefully inadequate. [The unrest in] Tunisia was the only intelligence we got right," Feinstein told TPM Tuesday, adding that U.S. intelligence completely missed the instability in Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain.

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CIA/DNI/Intelligence

CIA Official: Obama Was Briefed On Egypt Instability Late Last Year

Susan Crabtree | February 3, 2011, 4:50PM

Associate Deputy Director of the CIA Stephanie O'Sullivan

The U.S. intelligence community warned President Obama about instability in Egypt late last year, according to a CIA official.

Stephanie O'Sullivan, the President's nominee for principal deputy director of national intelligence who currently serves as associate deputy director of the CIA, told the Senate intelligence committee Thursday that the agency briefed Obama. She did not indicate how specific the information they provided was.

"We warned of instability but not exactly where it would come from [and in what form]," she said. "That happened at the end of last year."

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2012 Presidential Primaries

Haley Barbour Now Pushing $50M Civil Rights Museum In Mississippi

Jillian Rayfield | January 12, 2011, 10:47AM

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS)

Following a flap over his defense of a Civil Rights-era segregationist group, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour used his final state-of-the-state address to encourage lawmakers to build a $50 million civil rights museum.

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Bob Woodward

Top 5 Leaks In Obama's Wars: Secret Armies, Terrorist Attacks And Political Strategizing

Christina Bellantoni | September 22, 2010, 1:00PM

Author Bob Woodward

News outlets that got a sneak peek Bob Woodward's latest book found that President Obama fretted that, without a timetable for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, he would lose support from his Democratic base. Woodward's Obama's Wars, out Monday, reveals an administration sparring over policy for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an Obama shaken by the potential of a terrorist attack and a secret CIA army helping fight terrorism in Pakistan.

Woodward, who wrote three books about President George W. Bush, interviewed administration officials, Cabinet members, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden for the book. Obama's Wars focuses mostly on Afghanistan and Obama's decision to send a surge of 30,000 troops there as he pulled combat troops from Iraq.

Here are the top 5 revelations out today.

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