“Defeat from the jaws of victory”

With all the blabbing and so many jumping on the band wagon of “I know what you don’t know…” we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in reporting all on the killing of Osama bin Laden.

The military and intelligence community needed only a few days to exploit the “Mother Lode” of information gained from the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.,Tthat could have had dramatic effect in disrupting the Al Qaeda organization. The CIA/NSA/DoD/etc. never had much time after people in WDC were competing with each other to see who could tell more of the Navy SEAL Team 6 military action.

According to AP, U.S. officials say that Osama bin Laden kept a hand-written journal filled with planning ideas and details of operations. The journal was part of the Intell cache that included about 100 flash drives and five computers taken by the SEALs after they swept through the compound

What we probably could have exploited if given only a few days:

- Locations of Osama bin Laden’s contact

- Al Qaeda functions e.g. finances, communications, training sites, operations, etc.

- Hideouts and infiltrations routes

Common sense tells anyone that if the U.S. said absolutely nothing after the raid no one in Al Qaeda would know what had happened for a few days and only the couriers knew where bin Laden lived

Simple logic says that if any bin Laden supporters heard anything they would not know the full story for a couple more days and there might have been a lot of doubt throughout Al Qaeda on whether he was captured or dead. The Pakistanis only knew that there was a raid on an alleged bin Laden hideout. We could have disrupted the Al Qaeda organization for some time.

It is hard to believe that none of our military leaders and/or the CIA could not have recommended that everyone keep their mouths shut for at least a couple of days to see what what could be done to the Al Qaeda organization.

It has been reported that bin Laden was preoccupied with attacking the United States over all other targets, a fixation that led to friction with followers, according to U.S. intelligence officials involved in analyzing the materials recovered from bin Laden’s compound. Every day even more details are leaked about how we got the information that led to the raid.

The worse leak of all is how exactly where, when and how the Al Qaeda couriers had a lapse in security that let the U.S. break the case.

Unfortunately, Al Qaeda has gained valuable information that will provide them time to modify operational plans and reposition leaders, hideouts and assets.

Bookmark It