NYMAG: Per "High Placed Sources"....BUSH is pissed

[Laura PourMeADrink]

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/05/george_w_bush_wants_more_credi.html

George W. Bush Wants More Credit for Killing Osama Bin Laden
5/5/11 at 09:45 AM 44Comments

America, even in times of nationalistic fervor, cannot shake its partisan inclinations. Polls show that Republicans and Democrats are sharply divided over whether former president George W. Bush or President Obama deserves more credit for the death of Osama bin Laden. Political pundits and columnists have argued about the proper allocation of credit for days. Earlier this week, Obama invited Bush to join him at a solemn wreath-laying ceremony at Ground Zero today for a show of bi-partisan, trans-administration unity. Bush declined, citing his desire to stay out of the spotlight. But a "high placed source" gives the Daily News another explanation: He wants more credit.

"He doesn't feel personally snubbed and appreciates the invitation, but Obama's claiming all the credit and a lot of other people deserve some of it," the source added.

"Obama gave no credit whatsoever to the intelligence infrastructure the Bush administration set up that is being hailed from the left and right as setting in motion the operation that got Bin Laden. It rubbed Bush the wrong way."

Obama has, actually, credited the vital work of the intelligence community, whether under himself or Bush.

• In his address on Sunday night, he said that after 9/11, "we went to war against Al Qaeda to protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies. Over the last ten years, thanks to the tireless and heroic work of our military and our counterterrorism professionals, we’ve made great strides in that effort."
• He added that "last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden."
• And in a congressional dinner the next night, Obama said, "I want to again recognize the heroes who carried out this incredibly dangerous mission, as well as all the military and counterterrorism professionals who made the mission possible."

What he hasn't done, though, is singled out Bush himself.

Bush feels Obama ignoring ex-president's role in Osama Bin Laden strike for 'victory lap': source

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. .

:rofl:

[Demeter]

2. I thought that was his natural state

dry drunk or pissed.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

6. good one ! I for one, saw this coming on sunday night. I didn't

see any downside of throwing DimSon a bone. hell, everyone would know
it wasn't true...but it would have made O look magnanimous. Like a
coach of the winning team bragging about the crummy team who lost.

you have to remember, bush didn't know what was going on. Hell, he
probably thought they were looking for OBL. that's probably what
cheney told him

the wingnuts will ALWAYS come up with some complaint about everything
Obama does,,,,but why not minimize the possibilities as much as
possible, if you can. Make them dig deep into the dregs.

[CakeGrrl]

3. Boo hoo. Sorry you're all over YouTube saying you didn't CARE

whether bin Laden was caught 6 months after 9/11, Dubya.

It takes a special kind of nerve to expect kudos after that.

[ReturnoftheDjedi]

4. Fuck you, George.

[sakabatou]

5. No, George, you don't get a pony.

[drm604]

7. Obama's claiming all the credit?

When did he do that?

Maybe this invitation was his attempt to give some credit to Bush.

Here's what I predict. Obama will give some credit to Bush during the ceremony because he was planning to do so all along. Why else invite Bush? The very invitation is an acknowledgement of credit.

The right wing will then proclaim that he only gave that credit because they shamed him into it.

[Solomon]

29. You put your finger on what makes me sick. Every time he

achieves something they try to make the claim that he hogs the credit. He never does that but that's the meme.

[tabatha]

8. Well was not the invitation to the 'victory lap'

and acknowledgment of his 'part'?

This is just a bunch of hooey to further detract from Obama's accomplishment.

[Nancy Waterman]

9. This is such bull sh*t

They love to play victim and whine about imagined slights.
As usual, it is another right-wing fantasy they are trying to use to tarnish Obama.
What a surprise. They just can't handle that they failed and actually gave up, while
he succeeded. Can't handle it at all.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

45. I just love it. Can you say "second term"?

[Historic NY]

10. Is he outsourcing his pissyness like he did at Tora Bora see report.

http://foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Tora_Bora_Report.pdf

TORA BORA REVISITED: HOW WE FAILED TO GET BIN LADEN AND WHY IT MATTERS TODAY

<snip>
But the Al Qaeda leader would live to fight another day. Fewer than 100 American commandos were on the scene with their Afghan allies and calls for reinforcements to launch an assault were ejected. Requests were also turned down for U.S. troops to block the mountain paths leading to sanctuary a few miles away in Pakistan. The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army, was kept on the sidelines. Instead, the U.S. command chose to rely on airstrikes and untrained Afghan militias to attack bin Laden and on Pakistan’s loosely organized Frontier Corps to seal his escape routes. On or around December 16, two days after writing his will, bin Laden and an entourage of bodyguards walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan’s unregulated tribal area. Most analysts say he is still there today.

The decision not to deploy American forces to go after bin Laden or block his escape was made by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, the architects of the unconventional Afghan battle plan known as Operation Enduring Freedom. Rumsfeld said at the time that he was concerned that too many U.S. troops in Afghanistan would create an anti-American backlash and fuel a widespread insurgency. Reversing the recent American military orthodoxy known as the Powell doctrine, the Afghan model emphasized minimizing the U.S. presence by relying on small, highly mobile teams of special operations troops and CIA paramilitary operatives working with the Afghan opposition. Even when his own commanders and senior intelligence officials in Afghanistan and Washington argued for dispatching more U.S. troops, Franks refused to deviate from the plan. There were enough U.S. troops in or near Afghanistan to bin Laden and try to prevent his escape. It would have been a dangerous fightacross treacherous terrain, and the injection of more U.S. troops and the resulting casualties would have contradicted the risk- averse, ‘‘light footprint’’ model formulated by Rumsfeld and Franks.But commanders on the scene and elsewhere in Afghanistan argued that the risks were worth the reward.

After bin Laden’s escape, some military and intelligence analysts and the press criticized the Pentagon’s failure to mount a full-scale attack despite the tough rhetoric by President Bush. Franks, Vice President Dick Cheney and others defended the decision, arguing that the intelligence was inconclusive about the Al Qaeda leader’s location. But the review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants underlying this report removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora. For example, the CIA and Delta Force commanders who spent three weeks at Tora Bora as well as other intelligence and military sources are certain he was there. Franks’ second-in-command during the war, retired Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong, wrote in his autobiography that bin Laden was ‘‘definitely there when we hit the caves’’—a statement he retracted when the failure became a political issue. Most authoritatively, the official history of the U.S. Special Operations Command determined that bin Laden was at Tora Bora. ‘‘All source reporting corroborated his presence on several days from 9-14 December,’’ said a declassified version of the history, which was based on accounts of commanders and intelligence officials and published without fanfare two years ago.

Laden and its lasting consequences are examined over three sections in this report. The first section traces bin Laden’s path from southern Afghanistan to the mountains of Tora Bora and lays out new and previous evidence that he was there. The second explores new information behind the decision not to launch an assault. The final section examines the military options that might have led to his capture or death at Tora Bora and the ongoing impact of the failure to bring him back ‘‘dead or alive. <snip>

[damntexdem]

11. Dubya should be prosecuted.

Having him pissed is fine, but not nearly good enough.

[DCBob]

12. If Bush is "pissed" then the President is doing precisely the right thing.

GOBama!

[Kingofalldems]

13. He's a snippy one---ask Al Gore

Who called him on it election night 2000.

[COLGATE4]

14. Fuck Little Lord Pissypants. That is all.

[indepat]

15. junior should be thankful for not ever having his stewardship questioned in any manner following

the orchestrated attacks of 9-11 which happened on his watch following numerous warnings from all over the world of a pending attack. How quaint it would be if junior would man-up and acknowledge this enormous failure instead of bemoaning his perception of having not been given proper credit? :patriot:

[Frustratedlady]

16. Obama used too many big words and the recognition flew right past him?

My heart is heavy, George. Maybe Obama will loan you items from bin Laden's lair for your library. Only thing is, I didn't hear mention of any tin soldiers. Better luck next time.

[Atman]

17. Bush can suck my dick.

If he hadn't gone off on his oil-quest, and dismantled the bin Laden-hunting unit, maybe this could have happened under his watch. No sympathy Chimpy. Just because you STARTED A FAKE WAR IN THE WRONG COUNTRY doesn't mean you deserve credit that OBL was eventually found by an elite intel/military force in an entirely different country.

[Canuckistanian]

18. He's such a small man n/t

[ProSense]

19. The

arrogant, incurious and petulant war criminal throws a tantrum.

[TwilightGardener]

20. When does utter failure ever deserve kudos? Did the Repubs give Carter

credit for trying his rescue?

[Left coast liberal]

21. Bush has always been a bratty snot-nose child.

Nothing has changed.

[tridim]

22. Fuck you Whistle-Ass. nt

[doublethink]

23. WTH?

"Obama gave no credit whatsoever to the intelligence infrastructure the Bush administration set up that is being hailed from the left and right as setting in motion the operation that got Bin Laden. It rubbed Bush the wrong way." -snip-

What infrastructure would that be? President Clinton set up that infrastructure called Alec Station in 1996 to hunt down bin laden. Bush killed the program in 2005 ..... funny how that is. :rofl:

[FrenchieCat]

24. The MOFO had 90% approval and was elected to a 2nd term......

all after proving his incompetence in allowing this shit to have happened...
and yet, he's still fucking crying!

It's too fucking much for me.

[jenmito]

25. Now THAT is satisfying (that his wittle feewings were hurt)! n/t

[nichomachus]

26. The apple doesn't fall very far from the tree -- neither do the nuts

He's just as big an evil mouthed bitch and his mother.

[former9thward]

27. There is no author at the link.

And who is the "highly placed source"? If this article was written about Obama we would all be condemning it as BS. It sounds made up to me.

[namahage]

38. The author is Dan Amira. It's at the link. n/t

[Thrill]

28. Credit for what?

.

[Politicalboi]

30. Here ya go crybaby

"Way to go Brownie" Where rewarding incompetence was your way of doing things. I give Bush credit for that.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

31. Way to go Brownie !! LMAO

[Phx_Dem]

32. That makes me happy. Bush is an asswipe.

[grasswire]

33. narcissist

textbook behavior

[Jennicut]

34. Poor little baby. W. get over yourself and act like a grownup. You are

64 years old already. Don't you think its time?

[formercia]

35. I would like to give junior some credit

If he had been in charge, Obama would have never had the chance to claim any credit.

You had your 8 years to play it for all it was worth. Go tell someone who gives a shit.

[AtomicKitten]

36. FFS. Go choke on a pretzel, Junior.

[BeyondGeography]

37. There's no satisfying that entitled little fuck

[Auntie Bush]

39. He's having a Gingrich getting off the back of the plane feeling.

[jillan]

40. Thank you Bush for leaving our troops short at Tora Bora and for going to Iraq and taking you eye

off the ball.

Feel better now?

[pacalo]

41. Now this sounds more accurate than the "he's being gracious to Obama" theory.

[Safetykitten]

42. Go cut brush you little assclown.

[sofa king]

43. He deserves more credit for killing 8,000 AMERICANS.

3000 dead in the largest security lapse in our history.

5000 dead in a war fought on false pretenses, the false pretense being that OBL was associated with Iraq.

But it occurs to me that he does deserve some credit, because by kicking us into the sink-hole of Iraq, it meant the war in Afghanistan was allowed to fester for nine years (killing tens of thousands more innocent people), which gave the SEALs about an hour less flying time to get to Osama's house than we would have had we launched from the sea or a base in one of the other 'Stans.

I'll tell you what. Let's give Georgie credit once he writes an apology letter to the family members of every single American serviceman and civilian he got killed. Step to writing, George.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

44. Poor wittle Georgie boy. That meanie took your ball?

[Vinca]

46. Poor Georgie.

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: