SOURCE Robert Weiner AssociatesRobert Weiner, a former Clinton White House spokesman and former senior congressional aide, and Senior Analyst at Robert Weiner Associates Richard Mann, prove Mitt Romney's statement is wrong that "any president" would have given the order that launched the raid that killed Osama bin Laden last year. They contrast Bush's 2001 farming out a raid on bin Laden's 2001 Tora Bora location to the Afghanis who failed on purpose or through ineptness to Obama's U.S. solo action in Abbottabad, Pakistan that succeeded when Obama did not reveal the strategy.
Weiner and senior policy analyst Richard Mann, wrote an article featured as the lead front page piece in yesterday's Naples (FL) Daily News opinion section, "'ANY PRESIDENT' WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME' AS OBAMA? Romney's Remark About Ordering Raid on bin Laden is Wrong: Ask Bush about Tora Bora." Weiner and Mann document their claim with information including a 2009 Senate Foreign Relations Committee Report, "TORA BORA REVISITED: HOW WE FAILED TO GET BIN LADEN."
In the article, Weiner and Mann say, "When placed in a similar situation with parallel choices, George W. Bush, Obama's predecessor, failed to succeed because he made the opposite decision. In December 2001, Bush had the chance to capture bin Laden in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, was faced with the choice of doing it ourselves or involving a foreign government, and blew it by asking the Afghanis to do it. Whether by ineptness or intent, the Afghani troops allowed bin Laden to escape."
Weiner and Mann show how Obama's approach was totally different. "When Obama was questioned as why he did not inform the Pakistanis in advance about Abbottabad, he said, 'I didn't tell most people here in the White House. I didn't tell my own family. It was that important for us to maintain operational security.' When asked during the 2006 presidential campaign debates what he would do with 'actionable intelligence', he said he would indeed have the United States 'act unilaterally' rather than in consort with foreign intelligence if necessary to capture bin Laden. That's precisely what he did."
The authors quote the 2009 Senate Foreign Relations Committee report: "The Committee says its review 'removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora.' The Committee Chair expressed the 'hope that we can learn from the mistakes of the past.' Obama did," say Weiner and Mann.
They conclude, "The debate moderators and news media as a whole have only allowed the Republicans to differentiate from each other and not from the President's successes when it comes to foreign policy. With the primary field coming to Florida for the Jan. 31 vote, it is time for the moderators to ask the Republicans if they have any real alternative that would have succeeded as Obama did in taking down Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, or Libya's Muammar Gaddafi or for that matter, on domestic policy, where Obama reversed the Bush bleeding of 750,000 jobs per month, rescued the auto industry and the nation's financial institutions, and put the country back to 22 straight months of increased jobs and improved GDP."
Robert Weiner is a former spokesman for the White House and was a Chief of Staff for former Florida Congressman Claude Pepper and a senior aide to Congressmen John Conyers (MI), Charles Rangel (NY), Ed Koch (NY), and Sen. Ted Kennedy (MA). Richard Mann is Senior Policy Analyst at Robert Weiner Associates.
Link to article: http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2012/jan/22/guest-column-any-president-would-have-done-the/ .
More information: www.weinerpublic.com
