Is the shoe on the other foot now?
Good grief...talk about apples and oranges
Military Officials Say Trump Botched Yemen Raid, He Never Even Came to Situation Room
If you tried to count how many times Donald J. Trump slammed Hillary Clinton for the night of the Benghazi attacked, it would take you weeks of research. Trump…
BLUEDOTDAILY.COM
Let me know when the Trump administration tries to proclaim that people were shot and or killed, because of some movie. Till then, I see no correlation.
Former Obama administration officials said Barack Obama didn't feel comfortable authorizing the operation because it was scheduled to take place after he left office — on Jan. 28, the next moonless night in Yemen.
On Jan. 24, new Defense Secretary James Mattis conveyed his support for the operation and forwarded it to the White House.
Trump dined the next day with an expanded team, including Mattis, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford and various military and administration officials, among them Vice President Mike Pence, chief strategist Steve Bannon, National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
That was when Trump gave his approval.
The White House said the Obama administration had approved the raid, but former Obama officials took to social media to say the proposal had not gotten that far.
As for Abdel Raouf Dhahab, the target of the operation, he was among those killed. Farea Muslimi, chairman of Sanaa Center for Strategic studies, said his death will stir anti-U.S. sentiment — not because he belonged to AQAP but because he didn't.
Ahmad Salmani, another local from Yakla, said as much. "Dhahab is not AQAP, and everyone knows that he is a tribal sheikh and has nothing to do with AQAP," Salmani said in an interview. "Because of this, now everyone ... is willing to risk his life to kill a U.S. soldier."
On Friday, an embarrassing coda to the raid emerged.
The U.S. military released what it claimed was sensitive intelligence seized during the assault — video showing jihadists building a bomb — only to discover that the video had been posted online in 2007.
One of the raid's goals was to collect the computers, electronic devices and other information inside the AQAP suspected headquarters. The 2007 video was quickly taken down.
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(Special correspondent Bulos reported from Beirut and Hennigan of the Tribune Washington Bureau from Washington.)
