Osama

The dramatic killing of Osama bin Laden after a 40-minute gun battle in a Pakistani hill station mansion is, as President Obama rightly said, a triumph of justice. It is a symbolic and historic milestone in the war on terror, marking the end of a frustrating, decade-long manhunt. By continuing to pursue Bin Laden years after 9/11, the United States sought to demonstrate that it has staying power and won't be outlasted by its enemies, including Bin Laden and his successors. That's an important message from a country with a reputation for losing interest in its overseas entanglements before they are fully resolved.

In the year since President Obama approved a successful raid against Osama bin Laden, public opinion has been shifting. While many Westerners still celebrate the targeted killing - along with the killing several months later of Anwar Awlaki - some are expressing doubts. European politicians, human rights lawyers and members of some East Coast think tanks have posited that these terrorists were actually more dangerous dead than alive. Death, the reasoning goes, martyred the leaders, thus immortalizing their ideas and appeal.

WASHINGTON — Osama bin Laden was devising a strategy for overthrowing Afghan President Hamid Karzai and controlling Afghanistan once the U.S. left the country, said a former U.S. official familiar with the cache of notes and letters that were seized last year in the raid on the terrorist leader's compound. Bin Laden had discussed his plans with the Taliban leadership council, known as the Quetta Shura, and the Haqqani network, which controls the North Waziristan tribal area in Pakistan, said the former official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity while discussing the intelligence.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A Pakistani doctor who led a phony vaccination campaign aimed at helping the CIA pinpoint Osama bin Laden's whereabouts was convicted of treason Wednesday and sentenced to 33 years in prison, a decision that is likely to further fray Washington's fragile relations with Islamabad. U.S. officials have been seeking the release of Shakeel Afridi since his arrest by Pakistani authorities after the secret American commando raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader in his sprawling compound in the garrison city of Abbottabad a year ago. In January, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told CBS' "60 Minutes" that Afridi had provided intelligence that assisted the raid and criticized Pakistan's arrest of someone involved in helping track down the world's most wanted man. From the start, however, Pakistani authorities have regarded Afridi as a traitor and have ignored Washington's calls for his release.

Director Kathryn Bigelow hasn't yet called "action" on her movie about the capture of Osama bin Laden, but the project is already stirring up controversy. Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, sent a letter to the CIA and the Defense Department on Tuesday asking for an investigation into whether the White House has granted Bigelow and Sony Pictures access to confidential information for the project. "I'm very concerned that any sensitive information could be disclosed in a movie," King said in a phone interview.

Did the Obama administration release classified information to Hollywood notables for a film about the operation that killed Osama bin Laden? That's a question Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) wants answered.  And in response, the Pentagon's inspector general has launched an investigation, King disclosed Thursday. “We plan to begin subject investigation immediately,” Patricia A. Brannin, deputy inspector general for intelligence and special program assessments, wrote in a memo that King emailed to reporters.

Human rights activists are pressing for the public release of a Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA's post-Sept. 11 detention and "enhanced interrogation" practices, hoping that it will answer the question once and for all of whether torture played a role in locating Osama bin Laden. Whatever the document might say about that question, releasing it would add to public knowledge about what President Obama rightly has called a "dark and painful chapter in our history. " Next week, almost a year to the day after the killing of Bin Laden, Jose Rodriguez, the former director of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, will publish a book titled "Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives.

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - Mitt Romney on Monday rejected claims by President Obama's campaign that he would not have ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden. “Of course, of course,” he said, when asked by reporters whether he would have gone after the terrorist. “Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.” The Obama campaign raised the matter over the weekend, roughly one year after the president ordered the targeted killing of the terrorist leader inside of Pakistan.

The White House on Wednesday defended its decision to grant filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow and others access to top officials to discuss the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, and called claims from a senior Republican lawmaker that classified information was being compromised for political ends "ridiculous. " New York Rep. Peter T. King, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, sent a letter to officials at the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency on Tuesday expressing concern about "ongoing leaks of classified information regarding sensitive military operations.

NEW YORK -- Mitt Romney on Tuesday marked Osama bin Laden's death a year ago by alternately praising President Obama for ordering the targeted killing of the terrorist leader and slamming him for politicizing the moment. “I think it's totally appropriate for the president to express to the American people the view that he has that he had an important role in taking out Osama bin Laden. I think politicizing it and trying to draw a distinction between himself and myself was an inappropriate use of a very important event that brought Americans together, which was the elimination of Osama bin Laden,” Romney told reporters after bringing six pizzas to a fire station that lost 11 men in the Sept.

WASHINGTON - In the months after the U.S. militarymission that killed Osama bin Laden, Pentagon officials met with Hollywood filmmakers and gave them special access in an effort to influence the creation of a film about the operation, newly released documents show. Emails and meeting transcripts obtained from the Pentagon and CIA through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch suggest that officials went out of their way to assist the filmmakers, while trying to keep their cooperation from becoming public.

Re "A year later, raid on Bin Laden becomes campaign fodder," May 1 In 2007, Mitt Romney said he wouldn't spend billions of dollars tracking down one man. During his second term as president,George W. Bush said he didn't know where Osama bin Laden was and didn't spend much time thinking about it. By the time Barack Obama was elected president, the trail to Bin Laden had long gone cold. In 2009, his first order to Leon Panetta, then his new CIA director, was to make the killing or capture of Bin Laden the top priority in the war against Al Qaeda.

There's plenty to criticize in this week's back and forth between President Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney over the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's killing. Obama stretched credibility in suggesting that Romney would not have pursued Bin Laden; Romney laughably minimized the significance of Obama's success in authorizing the operation that ended the terrorist's life. But one claim stands out for its impropriety. Commenting on Obama's decision to green light the raid on Bin Laden's compound, Romney said that "even Jimmy Carter" would have made that call.

NEW YORK -- Mitt Romney on Tuesday marked Osama bin Laden's death a year ago by alternately praising President Obama for ordering the targeted killing of the terrorist leader and slamming him for politicizing the moment. “I think it's totally appropriate for the president to express to the American people the view that he has that he had an important role in taking out Osama bin Laden. I think politicizing it and trying to draw a distinction between himself and myself was an inappropriate use of a very important event that brought Americans together, which was the elimination of Osama bin Laden,” Romney told reporters after bringing six pizzas to a fire station that lost 11 men in the Sept.

WASHINGTON — Osama bin Laden was devising a strategy for overthrowing Afghan President Hamid Karzai and controlling Afghanistan once the U.S. left the country, said a former U.S. official familiar with the cache of notes and letters that were seized last year in the raid on the terrorist leader's compound. Bin Laden had discussed his plans with the Taliban leadership council, known as the Quetta Shura, and the Haqqani network, which controls the North Waziristan tribal area in Pakistan, said the former official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity while discussing the intelligence.

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - Mitt Romney on Monday rejected claims by President Obama's campaign that he would not have ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden. “Of course, of course,” he said, when asked by reporters whether he would have gone after the terrorist. “Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.” The Obama campaign raised the matter over the weekend, roughly one year after the president ordered the targeted killing of the terrorist leader inside of Pakistan.

Re "Where's Osama?" letter, June 22: Osama bin Laden is the latest version of Pancho Villa, a Mexican warlord who invaded the U.S. in 1916. He and his band laid waste to the town of Columbus, N.M. President Woodrow Wilson sent most of the Army into the mountains of Mexico to "hunt 'em down and smoke 'em out." Alas, the American armed forces never found Villa or his band. What they did find was the aroused population, who fought against the Yankee invaders of their country. After three months the Army returned to the U.S. Why not send the politicians with all their slogans and bombast to hunt for old Osama?

Re "A year later, raid on Bin Laden becomes campaign fodder," May 1 In 2007, Mitt Romney said he wouldn't spend billions of dollars tracking down one man. During his second term as president,George W. Bush said he didn't know where Osama bin Laden was and didn't spend much time thinking about it. By the time Barack Obama was elected president, the trail to Bin Laden had long gone cold. In 2009, his first order to Leon Panetta, then his new CIA director, was to make the killing or capture of Bin Laden the top priority in the war against Al Qaeda.

WASHINGTON - In a first term marked by clear partisan divisions, President Obama's decision to order a high-risk special forces operation targeting Osama bin Laden stands out as an unquestioned nonpartisan success. But the one-year anniversary of the Al Qaeda mastermind's death has become a flash point in early skirmishing between Obama and Mitt Romney, his likely Republican opponent in the fall election. It reflects both the competitive nature of this year's presidential contest and Democrats' zeal to highlight an advantage over the GOP on issues of national security.

Human rights activists are pressing for the public release of a Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA's post-Sept. 11 detention and "enhanced interrogation" practices, hoping that it will answer the question once and for all of whether torture played a role in locating Osama bin Laden. Whatever the document might say about that question, releasing it would add to public knowledge about what President Obama rightly has called a "dark and painful chapter in our history. " Next week, almost a year to the day after the killing of Bin Laden, Jose Rodriguez, the former director of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, will publish a book titled "Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives.