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Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Bin Laden not armed during U.S. raid


He is dead, lets move on, release whatever it takes to make the spooks go away. I get tired of hearing maybe he ain't dead, they lied before. What if its a scam....and whether or not he was armed, used his wife as a shield, if Pakistan knew anything. If Pakistan is important, fine, so be it, but our troops need to come home. it is over, if Afghanistan can not control its people, or take control and make it work, why do we have to loose our troops because governments can not do for themselves.

White House offers more on SEAL raid in Pakistan as a few details are disputed



Osama Bin Laden 's hiding place (slide show)

msnbc.com news services
updated 5 minutes ago

Osama bin Laden was not armed when a U.S. Navy SEAL raiding party confronted him during an assault on his compound in Pakistan, the White House said Tuesday.
White House press secretary Jay Carney acknowledged that bin Laden did not have a weapon even though administration officials have said that bin Laden resisted during the 40-minute raid. Bin Laden was shot in the head and in the chest during the encounter.
Carney said bin Laden's wife "rushed the U.S. assaulter" and was shot in the leg but not killed, contrary to what a White House official said on Monday, when reports said bin Laden used her as a shield. 
Carney declined to offer further details on bin Laden's behavior during the raid. Resistance did not require a firearm, he said.
He said the decision to kill rather than capture bin Laden was made by forces on the ground, not by the White House, which earlier authorized the rehearsed raid. 
U.S. forces faced a firefight throughout the raid.
"We expected a great deal of resistance and were met with a great deal of resistance. There were many other people who were armed in the compound," Carney said

White House press secretary Jay Carney acknowledged that bin Laden did not have a weapon even though administration officials have said that bin Laden resisted during the 40-minute raid. Bin Laden was shot in the head and in the chest during the encounter.
Carney said bin Laden's wife "rushed the U.S. assaulter" and was shot in the leg but not killed, contrary to what a White House official said on Monday, when reports said bin Laden used her as a shield. 
Carney declined to offer further details on bin Laden's behavior during the raid. Resistance did not require a firearm, he said.
He said the decision to kill rather than capture bin Laden was made by forces on the ground, not by the White House, which earlier authorized the rehearsed raid. 
U.S. forces faced a firefight throughout the raid.
"We expected a great deal of resistance and were met with a great deal of resistance. There were many other people who were armed in the compound," Carney said

White House press secretary Jay Carney acknowledged that bin Laden did not have a weapon even though administration officials have said that bin Laden resisted during the 40-minute raid. Bin Laden was shot in the head and in the chest during the encounter.
Carney said bin Laden's wife "rushed the U.S. assaulter" and was shot in the leg but not killed, contrary to what a White House official said on Monday, when reports said bin Laden used her as a shield. 
Carney declined to offer further details on bin Laden's behavior during the raid. Resistance did not require a firearm, he said.
He said the decision to kill rather than capture bin Laden was made by forces on the ground, not by the White House, which earlier authorized the rehearsed raid. 
U.S. forces faced a firefight throughout the raid.
"We expected a great deal of resistance and were met with a great deal of resistance. There were many other people who were armed in the compound," Carney said
There had been conflicting information about the circumstances under which the al-Qaida leader was killed. Some reports said that bin Laden was armed and that the woman was used as a human shield.
Describing the raid, Carney said two other families lived in the bin Laden compound in the outskirts of Abbottabad, some 60 miles from the capital of Islamabad. One family lived on the first floor of the bin Laden building and one family in a second building. One team began the operation on the first floor of the bin Laden house and worked their way to the third floor; a second team cleared the separate building.
Slate: Dramatic bin Laden death details may be bogus
Carney said Navy SEALs encountered two al-Qaida couriers on the first floor of the compound building holding bin Laden and his family. A woman caught in crossfire there died, he said.
Bin Laden and his family were on the building's third floor.
"There was concern that bin Laden would oppose the capture operation and indeed he resisted," Carney said, reading from a White House narrative obtained by NBC News.
After the firefight, Carney said, noncombatants were moved "to a safe location" as a damaged U.S. helicopter, one of two that landed at the compound, was destroyed.
Earlier reports also noted that as Navy Seals swept through bin Laden's massive compound, they handcuffed those they encountered with plastic zip ties as they continued to pursue their target, code-named Geronimo.
In addition to bin Laden, one of his sons, Khalid, was killed in the raid, Brennan said. Bin Laden's wife was shot in the calf but survived, a U.S. official said Monday. Also killed were bin Laden's trusted personal courier Sheikh Abu Ahmed and his brother, both earlier identified as two of bin Laden's al-Qaida facilitators, and an unidentified woman.
Twenty-three children and nine women were in the compound at the time of the assault and were turned over to Pakistani authorities, said a U.S. official who requested anonymity to discuss an intelligence matter. The SEAL team believes Bin Laden had lived at the compound for six years, the official said.
The BBC reported that the Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI, released raid details that differed from White House version.
Among them:
  • There were 17-18 people in the compound at the time of the attack.
  • Americans took away one person still alive, possibly a Bin Laden son.
  • Those who survived the attack included a wife, a daughter and eight to nine other children, not apparently Bin Laden's; all had their hands tied by the Americans.
  • A surviving Yemeni wife said they had moved to the compound a few months ago.
  • Bin Laden's daughter, aged 12 or 13, saw her father shot.

U.S. officials deny taking a prisoner, stating "the only person who left the compound besides the U.S. forces was Osama Bin Laden's body."
Carney on Tuesday also offered more details about bin Laden's burial at sea:
  • Aboard the USS Carl Vinson, the burial of bin Laden was done in conformance with Islamic precepts and practices.
  • The deceased's body was washed and then placed in a white sheet.
  • The body was placed in a weighted bag; a military officer read prepared religious remarks, which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker.
  • After the words were complete, the body was placed on a prepared flat board, tipped up, and the deceased body eased into the sea.
Carney also said the photograph of bin Laden dead is "gruesome" and "it could be inflammatory" if released.
The White House is mulling whether to make the photo public, but he said officials are concerned about the "sensitivity" of doing so. Carney said there is a discussion internally about the most appropriate way to handle the photo, but "there is not some roiling debate here about this."
Asked if President Barack Obama is involved in the photo discussion, Carney said the president is involved in every aspect of this issue.

Democrats Can Only Blame Themselves For High Gas Prices

May 3, 2011


By Refusing to Expand Domestic Energy Development, Democrats Hold Responsibility for Consumers' Price Pinch and Lost Production

Gas prices have been rising for two months and hitting new record highs while economic experts fear that the price pinch could weaken the already frail economy:

NATIONAL AVERAGE PRICE AT $3.95/GALLON, UP FROM $2.88/GALLON A YEAR AGO. ("AAA'sDaily Fuel Gauge Report," AAA, Accessed 5/2/2011)

CBS NEWS: "RISING GAS PRICES MAY SLOW ECONOMIC RECOVERY." ("Rising Gas Prices May Slow Economic Recovery," CBS Evening News, 4/11/2011)

FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN BEN BERNANKE: PROLONGED HIGH GAS PRICES COULD THREATEN ECONOMY: "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Tuesday that a prolonged rise in oil prices would pose a danger to the U.S. economy." (Jeannine Aversa, "Bernanke: High Oil Prices Could Harm Economy," Associated Press, 3/2/2011) 

The last time gas prices were this high Democrats engaged in their ritual habit of blaming then-President George W. Bush and Republicans for high gas prices:

FLASHBACK TO 2006: "DEMOCRATS BLAME BUSH FOR HIGH GAS PRICES." "Consumer gasoline prices continue to soar as the Bush administration places too much emphasis on drilling reserves and not enough on alternative fuels, Democrats said Saturday." ("Democrats Blame Bush for High Gas Prices," USA Today, 4/22/2006)

PELOSI IN 2008: HIGH GAS PRICES DUE TO "TWO OIL MEN IN THE WHITE HOUSE." "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Thursday blamed the ‘two oil men in the White House,' President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, and their Republican allies in Congress for gas prices exceeding $4 a gallon." (" ‘Two Oil Men' To Blame for High Gas Prices, Pelosi Says," CNN Politics, 7/17/2008)

OBAMA IN 2008: IT'S ALL DICK CHENEY'S FAULT. "To listen to Barack Obama today, it's all Dick Cheney's fault. ... Obama continued: ‘Cheney met with renewable energy once and oil companies 40 times. He has offered a gas tax holiday that at best would give you 30 cents a day for three months but assuming that the gas company would pass that on to you.'" (James Gerstenzang, "Barack Obama Links McCain to Bush-Cheney Oil Policies," Los Angeles Times, 8/5/2008)

Now that they're in charge of Washington, Democrats have no one left to blame but themselves. The Democrats' record on domestic energy development is one of actively stalling new drilling permits, lost production and dependence on foreign oil:

NUMBER OF PERMITS ISSUED BY OBAMA ADMINISTRATION THIS YEAR "PALE[S] IN COMPARISON" TO PREVIOUS YEARS: "But the 10 new wells that have received permits from the newly created U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management so far this year pale in comparison to the rate of permitting in prior years, according to a Reuters analysis of permits. The pace of government-issued permits so far in 2011 is about a third the rate for the same period in each of the previous five years, 40 versus an average of 119 in 2006 through 2010." (Kristen Hays and Bruce Nichols, "Analysis: After BP spill, U.S. drill permits slow to a trickle," Reuters, 4/18/2011)

DRILLING RIGS ARE MOVING TO OTHER COUNTRIES BECAUSE OF OBAMA'S POLICIES: "This month, one year since the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, the Noble Clyde Boudreaux—an ultra-deepwater semi-submersible drilling rig—will start operations off the coast of Brazil. Until a few weeks ago it was stationed in the Gulf.  …

"Despite the president's repeated claims that he's been encouraging' domestic oil production,administration policies have been driving drilling rigs out of the Gulf (six deepwater rigs in addition to the Noble have left the Gulf, with two more possibly on the way out). The overall result has been lower domestic oil production, slower economic growth, job losses and higher energy prices." (Joseph Mason, "Time for a Cease-Fire in the War on Oil," The Wall Street Journal, 4/25/2011)

360,000 BARRELS/DAY OF PRODUCTION LOST: "Because of the moratorium and de facto moratorium, the United States has lost an estimated 360,000 barrels per day of oil production from the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 and 2011. The Obama administration also keeps postponing the approval of an oil pipeline from Canada. The administration cannot seem to figure out the environmental implications of a pipeline despite the fact that there are more than 50,000 miles of oil pipelines already in the United States.  And instead of drilling here, the Obama Administration is promoting offshore oil production in Brazil and placing the United States into an air combat situation with Libya, a member of the Organization of Oil Producing States (OPEC).  It seems that Mr. Obama's administration will go to lengths to obtain oil supplies from everywhere but the United States and Canada." ("The Obama Administration Is Slowly Reissuing Offshore Oil Permits," Institute for Energy Research, 3/23/2011)

EVEN BILL CLINTON CALLED OBAMA'S DRILLING DELAYS "RIDICULOUS": "Former President Bill Clinton said Friday that delays in offshore oil and gas drilling permits are 'ridiculous' at a time when the economy is still rebuilding, according to attendees at the IHS CERAWeek conference.(Darren Goode, "Bill Clinton: Drilling Delays 'Ridiculous,'Politico, 3/11/2011)

DNA confirms bin Laden death

'Multiple methods' used to positively identify his remains, officials say
After the firefight that killed Osama bin Laden, the U.S. used "multiple methods" to positively identify his remains. A senior White House official tells NBC News that the U.S. has completed the DNA analysis and it has come back with a nearly 100 percent match to his relatives. Osama bin Laden's death has been confirmed, with the DNA evidence providing a match with 99.9 percent confidence.
NBC News has also been told that the CIA'S facial recognition technology has identified bin Laden's face with 95 percent certainty -- considered a very high accuracy -- after comparing it to known pictures of him.Bin Laden was first visually identified on the scene by people in the U.S. forces team who conducted the raid, according to a U.S. official speaking on background. Bin Laden was also identified by a woman initially believed to be one of his wives, the official said.
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee says more than one DNA sample was used to identify Osama bin Laden after U.S. troops killed the al-Qaida chief in a weekend raid in Pakistan.
Rep. Mike Rogers says there are many places where bin Laden's DNA is available, including relatives. He says the U.S. government had been preparing for such testing for some time.
The Michigan Republican, a former FBI agent, says that as a result of the DNA tests and other techniques, it is "clear beyond a shadow of a doubt" that bin Laden is the person killed in the raid.
White House officials did not immediately say where or how the testing was done but the test explains why President Barack Obama was confident to announce the death to the world Sunday night. Obama provided no details on the identification process.
'Extremely accurate' The U.S. is believed to have collected DNA samples from bin Laden family members in the years since the 9/11 attacks that triggered the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan. It was unclear whether the U.S. also had fingerprints or some other means to identify the body on site.
It’s possible that the government collected samples from some of the places where bin Laden lived over the years, said Dr. George Michalopoulos, chairman of the department of pathology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Comparing those samples with the ones from bin Laden’s body would be the best way to identify the remains, said Michalopoulos.
“One way to identify a body is through comparison with blood samples or with DNA from a toothbrush or comb,” Michalopoulos said. “That’s extremely accurate.”
Without samples from bin Laden himself, pathologists could have identified the body in much the same way as some of the 9/11 victims were identified -- by comparing blood and tissue samples with those from close relatives.
“If you use DNA from immediate relatives such as children or parents, you can make an identification with about 95 percent accuracy,” said Michalopoulos
In the case of some of those who died in 9/11 family members were asked to supply hair samples from brushes of their loved ones, said Dr. John Tomaszewski, president of the American Society for Clinical Pathology.
If this is how bin Laden has been identified, “it’s a very ironic twist,” Tomaszewski said.

Bin Laden was shot in the head during the firefight with members of an elite American counter-terrorism unit that launched a helicopter-borne raid on the al-Qaida leader's compound in Pakistan early Monday, U.S. officials said. Officials said the U.S. special forces who stormed the compound came face-to-face with their prey.
U.S. officials also said bin Laden was identified through "facial recognition," a reference to technology for mapping unique facial characteristics, but it was not clear exactly how the Navy SEAL troops performed the comparison.
The body was later taken to an American warship, but the senior Pentagon official declined to say which one and where the ship was situated.
The body was photographed before being buried at sea, although no images have been released by the Obama administration.
The U.S. official who disclosed the burial at sea said it would have been difficult to find a country willing to accept the remains. Obama said the remains had been handled in accordance with Islamic custom, which requires speedy burial.  Slideshow: World reacts to death of Osama bin Laden 
Positive identification of the remains is considered a critically important part of the U.S. operation, given the symbolic importance of bin Laden's leadership of the Islamic extremist movement that was based in Afghanistan until the U.S. invaded in October 2001.
When al-Qaida's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a U.S. airstrike in June 2006, DNA tests were performed by the FBI to positively identify the remains. The U.S. military also performed an autopsy, in part to dispel allegations in the immediate aftermath of the airstrike that the terrorist leader had been beaten or shot by U.S. soldiers while in American custody.
It was not clear Monday whether the Obama administration intended to release its photos of bin Laden's body.
In July 2003, when U.S. forces killed Saddam Hussein's sons, Odai and Qusai, in a gunbattle in northern Iraq, the U.S. military released graphic after-death photographs in an effort to prove to Iraqis that they were dead. Two of the photos showed the first man, identified as Qusai, with bruises and blood spots around his eyes. That face was far more intact than the other, identified as Odai; the mouth was open with the teeth showing.
NBC News, The Associated Press, Reuters and msnbc.com contributor Linda Carroll contributed to this report


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    The death of Osama bin Laden is adding fueling to the long-simmering debate among U.S. lawmakers about the nation's strategy and timetable in Afghanistan.
  2. NJ: Should the Afghan war die with bin Laden?

Inside the SEAL team that 'doesn't exist'


'Quiet professionals' make up the fabled SEAL Team Six that reportedly killed bin Laden

NBC, msnbc.com and news services
updated 2 hours 42 minutes ago
The raid that killed Osama bin Laden will earn permanent bragging rights for the the elite Navy SEAL team that carried it out.
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The SEALs won't confirm they carried out the attack, but their current chief, Rear Adm. Edward Winters of the Naval Special Warfare Command in California, sent an email congratulating his forces and cautioning them to keep their mouths shut.
"Today we should all be proud. That handful of courageous men, of strong will and character, have changed the course of history," he wrote, adding, "Be extremely careful about operational security ... The fight is not over."
It was a warning few needed in the secretive group, where operators are uncomfortable with media coverage, fearing revealing details could let the enemy know what to expect the next time.
Even their families are kept in the dark about many of the details of their operations. "There's a lot of times too when they say, well I can't talk about that. And we don't know half the stuff... But what they can share they do when they get home," the wife of a SEAL told NBC News. The network revealed only her first name, Casey.
Eric Greitens, a former SEAL and author of "The Heart and the Fist," told NBC News that the unit that carried out the raid on bin Laden's compound was "the elite of the elite."
"The word is that when they heard that bin Laden was their target, there was a huge cheer that went up," Greitens said on NBC's TODAY. "These guys were excited for the mission, they had been practicing for months."
"They will be honored and revered," Greitens said of the group that carried out the mission. As for the man who fired the shot that killed him: "He's a hero in my mind, and I think for all Americans."
The SEAL team that raided bin Laden's compound reportedly came from a unit based in Dam Neck, Virginia, called the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or "DEVGRU." They call themselves the "the quiet professionals."
 Video: Practice makes perfect mission, former SEALs say (on this page)
SEAL Team Six raided targets outside war zones like Yemen and Somalia in the past three years, though the bulk of the unit's current missions are in Afghanistan.
The unit is overseen by the Joint Special Operations Command, which oversees the Army's Delta Force and other special units. JSOC's combined forces have been responsible for a quadrupling of counterterrorism raids that have targeted militants in record numbers over the past year in Afghanistan. Some 4,500 elite special operations forces and support units have been part of the surge of U.S. forces there.
CIA Director Leon Panetta was in charge of the military team during the covert operation, a U.S. official said. While the president can empower the SEALs and other counterterrorism units to carry out covert actions without CIA oversight, President Barack Obama's team put the intelligence agency in charge, with other elements of the national security apparatus answering to them for this mission.
Team Six 'doesn't exist' SEAL Team Six actually works so often with the intelligence agency that it's sometimes called the CIA's Praetorian Guard — a partnership that started in Iraq as an outgrowth of the fusion of special operations forces and intelligence in the hunt for militants there.
SEALs and Delta Force both, commanded by then-JSOC chief Gen. Stanley McChrystal, learned to work much like FBI agents, first attacking a target, killing or capturing the suspects, and then gathering evidence at the scene.
McChrystal described it as building a network to chase a network, where the special operations forces work with intelligence analysts back at a joint operations center. The raiders, he said, could collect valuable "pocket litter" from the scene, like documents or computers, to exploit to hunt the next target.
The battlegrounds of Iraq and Afghanistan had been informally divided, with the SEALs running Afghanistan and Delta Force conducting the bulk of the operations in Iraq, though there was overlap of each organization. There is considerable professional rivalry between them.
Delta Force units caught Saddam Hussein late in 2003 and killed his sons Uday and Qusay in a shootout in Mosul earlier that year. Delta Force later tracked down al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, pinpointing the building where he sheltered for the aerial bombing that ended his life.
 Video: New details on mission to kill bin Laden (on this page)
The race to be the unit that captured bin Laden had been on ever since.
"Officially, Team Six doesn't exist," says former Navy SEAL Craig Sawyer, 47, who advises Hollywood and acts in movies about the military.
After undergoing a six-month process in which commanders scrutinized his every move, Sawyer says he was selected in the 1990s to join the team.
"It was like being recruited to an all-star team," he said, with members often gone 300 days a year, only lasting about three years on the team before burning out.
"They train around the clock," he said. "They know that failure will not be an option. Either they succeed or they don't come home."
Other special operations units joke that "SEAL" stands for "Sleep, eat, lift," though the term actually stands for Sea, Air, Land.
"The SEALs will be the first to remind everyone that the 'L' in SEAL stands for land," says retired Army Gen. Doug Brown, former commander of U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Florida. "They have skills on the land equal to their skills at sea."
Brown, who led the command from 2003-07, said the operation against bin Laden is the most significant mission conducted by U.S. commando forces since the organization was formed in 1987 in the wake of the failed attempt in 1980 to rescue the American hostages in Iran.
"I can't think of a mission as nationally important," Brown said.
Missions rarely made public Although bin Laden's killer will not be named, nor will the other members of his unit, the Washington Post interviewed three former SEALs — including Greitens — to sketch out a likely profile.
Reuters / msnbc.com
"He's bearded, rough-looking, like a street urchin," Richard Marcinko, founder of SEAL Team Six, speculated. "You don't want to stick out," he said.
He is probably aged 26 to 33 and has carried out more than a dozen deployments, Marcinko told the Post.
Above all, he will have the drive and competitive spirit to want to get straight back into the action, the former SEALs predicted. And of course, he will remain anonymous.
The last time the public was made aware of a SEAL raid on Pakistani soil was 2008, when the raiders flew only a mile over the border to the town of Angurada, according to Pakistani officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive strategic matters. The high-value targets the Americans had been told were there had fled, and those left behind in the compound fought back, resulting in a number of civilian casualties, U.S. and Pakistani officials say, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a classified operation.
While the U.S. usually does not comment on covert actions, especially ones that go wrong, the 2008 incident was caught on cellphone video, so they confirmed it and apologized publicly, U.S. officials said.
The successful bin Laden mission is a much-needed boost for the unit. The SEALs' reputation took a hit within the special operations community after a 2010 rescue mission led to the accidental killing of British hostage Linda Norgrove, held by militants in Afghanistan. One of the SEALs threw a fragmentation grenade at a militant when the team stormed their hideout, not realizing Norgrove was curled on the ground next to the militant, and then lied about throwing the grenade.
The SEALs originally reported that Norgrove had been killed by a fighter's suicide vest, but when the SEAL commanding officer reviewed the tape from simultaneous surveillance video, he saw an explosion after one of the SEALs threw something in Norgrove's direction, U.S. officials say, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a classified operation.
One SEAL was dismissed from the unit for his action.
DEVGRU is the same unit that rescued an American ship captain, Richard Phillips, held hostage on a lifeboat by Somali pirates after his capture from the USS Maersk Alabama in 2009. A DEVGRU unit fired precision shots from the rocking stern of a Naval ship, killing three of four pirates.

  1. US forces kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan
  2. Muslim-Americans: Good riddance to bin Laden
  3. Pakistan accused of bin Laden 'double game'
  4. US may release photos of bin Laden sea burial
  5. NYT: In Arab world, bin Laden’s confused legacy
  6. Obama's golf shoes a clue to bin Laden raid?
  7. Bin Laden's death spawns conspiracy theories
  8. NJ: The secret team that killed bin Laden
  9. Counterterrorism chief declares al-Qaida 'in the past'
  10. Bin Laden hideout location 'raises questions'
  11. NYT: A mixed emotion stored for a decade
  12. US tracked couriers to elaborate bin Laden compound
  13. Bin Laden death rekindles interrogation debate
  14. A timeline of Osama bin Laden's life