Subject: Biden says he backed bin Laden raid all along - POLITICO
From: "Eric Schwerin" <[email-masked]>
To: "Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2015 11:48:18 -0400

> http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/joe-biden-support-bin-laden-raid-214954 <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/joe-biden-support-bin-laden-raid-214954>
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> Biden says he backed bin Laden raid all along
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> 
> Vice President Joe Biden said he knew about the Abbottabad compound as early as August 2010. | Getty
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> Biden says he backed bin Laden raid all along
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> The vice president's claim appears to contradict his previous account of the president's decision.
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> By Edward-Isaac Dovere <http://www.politico.com/staff/edward-isaac-dovere>
> 10/20/15 11:32 AM EDT
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> Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday he was always for the May 2011 raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden — he just didn’t want to get ahead of President Barack Obama.
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> And that, he says, put him further out in favor of going into Abbottabad than any member of Obama’s Cabinet at the time other than Leon Panetta, then the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
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> That would include then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Biden's potential opponent in the Democratic primary, should he decide to run.
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> Clinton has discussed her position in the debate over the raid, saying that she was always for it, unlike others — Biden included — who had reservations. Biden has often been frustrated with that portrayal, but his own previous statements appear to contradict his new account.
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> At a retreat for House Democrats in January 2012, Biden reportedly <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/joe-biden-bin-laden-raid-defense-hillary-clinton-2016-campaign-121779> said he had told Obama not to do the raid during a meeting in the White House Situation Room.
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> “Every single person in that room hedged their bet except Leon Panetta,” the New York Times reported <http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/from-biden-a-vivid-account-of-bin-laden-decision/?_r=0> Biden saying. “Leon said go. Everyone else said, 49, 51.”
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> Asked by Obama what he thought, Biden relayed at the time, "'We owe the man a direct answer. Mr. President, my suggestion is, don’t go. We have to do two more things to see if he’s there.'"
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> On Tuesday, however, Biden said that he remembered being in favor of the raid all along, but worried about saying so in front of the other people in the room if Obama ultimately decided against it, to avoid causing a problem for the president on such a major decision.
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> “I did not want to take a position to go if he was not going to,” Biden said.
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> But he said that when he and Obama spoke privately in the Oval Office after that meeting, he pressed the case to send in the Navy SEALs.
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> Speaking at a forum at George Washington University celebrating the legacy of former Vice President Walter Mondale, Biden recalled the moment as he discussed his central and unmatched role within the Obama White House.
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> To start, Biden said, he knew about the Abbottabad compound as early as August 2010, though “major players in the Cabinet didn’t know about it until January or February.”
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> The raid was on May 2, 2011.
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> Describing the scene in what he says was the Cabinet Room in the White House, Biden said there were only two people with firm opinions about what to do: Panetta and Gates, who has already said publicly that he was a no.
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> “Others,” Biden said, were “49, 51.”
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> Some ultimately said go, Biden said, but it was such a close call, he recalled saying to the Cabinet members that they “sounded like 17 Larry Summers” — economists saying, “on the one hand, on the other hand.”
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> Biden’s account Tuesday touched on an explanation for what he said at the meeting, which was seen as being against the raid.
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> “There was a third option that I didn’t really think we should do. I said, ‘Well, I think that we should make one more pass with another UAV to see if it is him,’” Biden said, referring to drone aircraft. “The reason I did that is I didn’t want to take a position to go if that was not where he was going to go.”
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> The vice president’s office declined further comment, but Bill Daley, the White House chief of staff at the time, backed up Biden’s new account in an interview after the vice president's remarks.
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> “The motivation’s kind of fudgy, as is obvious — the Situation Room’s not as private as you’d think it should be,” Daley said, agreeing that this moment reflected Biden's practice of not disagreeing with Obama in front of others. “In the decision, that was pretty much his sort of fudging, and then he went out with the president as he said and walked up the stairs with him.”
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> “That was about the most complete and accurate explanation I’ve heard from the vice president, which is reflected in what I remember,” Daley said, adding that it’s the previous version Biden has given that doesn’t match his memory. “I don’t remember him being that emphatic saying, ‘Don’t go, don’t do this.’”
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Eric D. Schwerin
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