New Book Alleges Obama Kept Postponing Raid on Bin Laden - East Idaho News
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New Book Alleges Obama Kept Postponing Raid on Bin Laden

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Getty N 051211 OBLAnnounce?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1343727925437Pete Souza/The White House via Getty Images(NEW YORK) — A New York Times best-selling author alleges in a new book that President Obama didn’t order the raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May 2011 until after he’d called off the operation three times earlier in the year.

Richard Miniter says in Leading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him that it was at the behest of special adviser Valerie Jarrett that Obama called off Navy SEAL operations in January, February and March of last year to get the al Qaeda leader who was holed up in his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The information regarding the postponements came from an unidentified source with Special Operations Command, Miniter claims.

Responding to Miniter’s charges, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday, “That is an utter fabrication.  It’s seems pretty clear that Mr. Miniter doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

According to Earnest, “Ms. Jarrett, like the vast majority of the president’s senior staff, was not read in on the operation on the mission against Osama bin Laden.”

Miniter’s new book is set to be released on Aug. 21.

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