Thursday, May 05, 2011

Heritage: White House in 'Amateur Hour'



Thursday, 05 May 2011 02:56 PM

By David A. Patten

The Obama administration’s handling of the aftermath of the operation to kill Osama bin Laden has devolved into “amateur hour,” Heritage Foundation expert Dr. James Jay Carafano tells Newsmax.

Although Carafano praised the Seal Team Six operation that initially took out bin Laden, the administration’s conflicting accounts of the operation have been counterproductive, he said.

Carafano told Newsmax Wednesday that it’s been “total amateur hour” since President Barack Obama’s announced bin Laden’s death.

Initially, said Carafano, White House Homeland Security adviser John Brennan appeared to be clever by portraying bin Laden as hiding behind one of his wives and using her as a human shield.

“It was a great line, but if it’s not true, the damage to your credibility makes you look amateurish,” he said. “Not to have your facts straight is just inexcusable.”

The administration has modified its account of the kill mission several times. It now appears that no firefight occurred, and that the al-Qaida mastermind was not armed when the Seals took him down.

A woman who rushed toward the Seals was shot in the leg, but not killed. And there is no indication that bin Laden used her for cover.

“I just thought it was stunning and unbelievable, that they would give out details and then say they may or may not have been accurate -- unbelievable amateur hour,” Carafano told Newsmax.

“Legitimacy is everything in a war of ideas,” he added.

Carafano, a 25-year U.S. Army veteran who is considered one of the nation’s leading experts in defense and homeland security, agrees with the administration’s decision not to release the grisly images of bin Laden’s corpse. Extremists could use the images to try to make bin Laden appear to be a martyr, he said.

“We should be doing everything possible to delegitimize, and denigrate, and humiliate the ‘legend’ of bin Laden,” Carafano said. “And nothing should be done that could glorify or enhance his stature.”

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