With Joe Biden preparing to move into the White House on January 20, 2021, he will also be succeeding his former boss, President Barack Obama. In a recent documentary, Biden reveals why he advised Obama to wait before ordering the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
A documentary by CNN titled “Presidents in Waiting” was aired over the weekend, featuring interviews from past vice presidents. Biden, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, Dan Quayle, and Walter Mondale were all featured in the documentary. Regarding the raid that Obama had ordered to kill the Al Qaeda leader, Biden was said to have advised taking caution, but Obama ultimately gave the green light.
The former vice president’s advice regarding the Bin Laden raid became an attack point by Republicans during the recent elections, who tried to paint him as someone who was against the raid. However, Obama’s newly-released memoir “A Promised Land,” reveals his version of the events, with Biden and then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates looking at what the consequences would be, should the raid fail. Biden also advised taking caution until the intelligence community was absolutely sure that Bin Laden was in Pakistan.
“In my view, there was one option there that was remaining: you could have done one more very low flight… spying down on the site,” Biden recalled. “To determine whether this was Bin Laden because again, there was no certainty…And so I looked around the table, I said, ‘I didn’t think we had this many economists in the room. On the one hand. The other hand,’ I said, ‘Mr. President,’ to give him space, I said, ‘I think you should wait’ and do one more pass.’ Knowing that if you made the lower pass, they might observe it and he’d flee.”
Last week, Biden revealed to CNN’s Jake Tapper that among his first acts as president following his inauguration on January 20, 2021, is to ask Americans to wear face masks for 100 days in order to slow the spread of COVID-19. Biden hoped that by adhering to a 100-day mask rule, there would be a reduction in the transmission of the coronavirus.