Newly declassified documents seized from Osama bin Laden’s compound at the time of his death reveal his plan to kill then-President Obama because he believed that then-Vice President Joe Biden was so “totally unprepared” to lead, that it would “plunge the U.S. into crisis.”
The terrorist leader also wanted to kill then-U.S. General David Petraeus to “alter the war’s path.” Bin Laden’s plan was to organize cells in Afghanistan and Pakistan to shoot down an aircraft carrying Obama and Petraeus.
This story was first reported in The Washington Post on March 16, 2012, by David Ignatius who was shown the documents at the time. That story, “The bin Laden plot to kill President Obama,” may be viewed here. The 45-page document has now been declassified. Ignatius wrote at the time that the documents had been declassified, which leaves some confusion as to why they are being declassified again.
In the document, bin Laden is issuing instructions to Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, then the number 2 man inside al-Qaeda. He wanted the mission to be carried out by the group’s military operations chief in Pakistan, Ilyas Kashmiri.
“The reason for concentrating on them is that Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make [Vice President] Biden take over the presidency. Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the U.S. into a crisis. As for Petraeus, he is the man of the hour…and killing him would alter the war’s path” in Afghanistan, bin Laden wrote. “Please ask brother Ilyas to send me the steps he has taken into that work,” he added. Kashmiri himself was killed in a U.S. drone strike soon afterward.
In an interview with The New York Times, Biden revealed he had told participants at a 2012 Democratic retreat in Maryland, that ahead of the raid, he said to Obama, “Mr. President, my suggestion is, don’t go. We have to do two more things to see if he’s there.”
Then, in 2015, as he often does, Biden changed his story and said he had supported the mission.
There’s a reason why former Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote in his memoir that “I think he [Joe Biden] has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Osama, if you thought he was unprepared then, you should see him now.
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