US President-elect Joe Biden recently revealed why he advised Barack Obama to wait to order the raid which killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011. Biden’s advice about Bin Laden raid has been a source of controversy. During his election campaign, Donald Trump had also attacked the former vice president opposed taking out the al-Qaeda leader altogether.
While speaking to CNN for a documentary about vice presidents- ‘Presidents in Waiting’- Biden said that it was to “give him space”. While Biden’s version of events has shifted, from saying he advised Obama to wait to saying he told him to go, Obama’s recently published memoir, however, revealed that Biden “weighed in against the raid”. In his book, A Promised Land, the former US President wrote that Biden and defence secretary Robert Gates were concerned about the enormous consequences of failure and counselled that Obama “should defer any decision until the intelligence community was more certain that Bin Laden was in the compound”. While speaking to CNN, the 46th President-elect echoed Obama and said that back then the President (Obama) went around the room and out of 17 people present, three gave him an absolute. Biden added that two said go and one said don’t go. He told the media outlet that in his view, there was an option there that was remaining.
