Joe Biden has offered two starkly different and contradictory accounts of his role in the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
After initially saying that he opposed the operation and told President Barack Obama not to do it, the 2020 Democratic front-runner changed his account to say he hedged in front of other officials but privately told Obama to go ahead.
Every other account of the decision-making process indicates that the former vice president’s first version was true and his later accounts were not. In 2012, he said his advice was, ‘Don’t go.’ By 2015, he had settled on saying he’d privately told Obama to ‘go.’
The former vice president’s most recent descriptions of his stance — when he morphed from vocal opponent of the raid, to private supporter of it — contradicts the public accounts of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, former CIA Director Leon Panetta, and Obama himself.
The CIA-planned U.S. special forces raid was carried out on the ground by SEAL Team Six when they disembarked from two MH-60 Black Hawks on May 2, 2011. It was launched from Jalalabad, Afghanistan, targeted bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and ended with the death of the al-Qaeda leader and mastermind of 9/11.
Obama assembled his national security team at the White House on April 28, 2011, to get everyone’s final advice. Options had included a bombing or a drone strike, but Obama wanted to be able to confirm bin Laden’s death. Risks involved Pakistan finding out, a gunfight ending in disaster, bin Laden not being there, and other variables.
The year afterwards, Biden described himself as openly opposed to the raid. Speaking at a House Democratic Party retreat on Jan. 27, 2012, Biden said Obama went around the table to all his top advisers, ending with him. Biden claimed that “every single person in that room hedged their bet” except for CIA Director Leon Panetta, who Biden recounts said: “Go.”
Biden said he criticized other people at the table and advised against the operation, saying: “You know, I didn’t know we had so many economists around the table … We owe the man a direct answer … Mr. President, my suggestion is: Don’t go. We have to see two more things to see if he’s there.” Biden said Obama walked out afterwards saying, “I’ll give you my decision.”
But Biden began telling a different story a few years later, saying at an event at George Washington University on Oct. 20, 2015, that rather than opposing the raid he didn’t give a definitive answer at the meeting but told Obama privately that he was in favor of it.
In this new telling, there were now “only two people who were definitive and were absolutely certain”: Panetta in favor and Gates opposed. Biden said he “joked” to the rest that “y’all sound like 17 Larry Summers, economists, on the one hand and on the other hand.”
But when Biden was asked for his thoughts, he no longer said he’d told Obama not to do it but had suggested “there was a third option that I didn’t really think we should do” and says he told everyone that “I think we should make one more pass with another UAV to see if it is him.”
But Biden said that “as we walked out of the room and walked upstairs, I told him my opinion, that I thought he should go but follow his own instincts.” Biden said being definitive at the meeting “would’ve been a mistake.”
“Imagine if I had said in front of everyone ‘Don’t go’ or ‘Go’ and his decision was a different decision?” Biden said. “It undercuts that relationship. So, I never, on a difficult issue, never say what I think finally until I go up in the Oval with him alone.”
Biden went on CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Oct. 25, 2015, to explain the contradictions. Biden claimed that “everything I said was completely accurate, I just never, until last Tuesday night, told the whole story.” Biden said that “in order to give the president the leeway he needed, I said ‘Mr. President, there’s one more thing we can do’ … one more pass to see if it was bin Laden. I said, ‘You should do that, and there’d still be time to have the raid, but that’s what I would do.’”
Biden again said he privately told Obama: “I know you should do it, but follow your instincts.”
When Biden was pressed on this he said, “The reporting was accurate when I said ‘I didn’t say go.’ And I didn’t. What I said was, ‘Mr. President, try one more thing.’”
“Imagine if I had said, ‘Mr. President, go,’ and he didn’t go? And then, bin Laden did something else bad? They would’ve said, ‘Well, everybody said, even his vice president said to go, and he said no.’” Biden explained. “And had I said, ‘By the way, when I went up privately I told him to go,’ it would’ve made it look like I was self-aggrandizing.”
Biden’s shifting story doesn’t just contradict itself. It contradicts Obama too. During a presidential debate with Mitt Romney on Oct. 22, 2012, Obama made it clear that Biden had opposed the raid, telling Romney that “even some in my own party, including my current vice president, had the same critique as you did.”
Peter Bergen, the author of Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abottabad, included a lengthy quotation of Biden’s words at the White House meeting: “We need greater certainty that Bin Laden is there … The risks to the Pakistani relationship and its importance are such that we need to know more before acting … You know, I didn’t know we had so many economists at the table … We owe the man a direct answer. Mister President, my suggestion is: Don’t go.”
Clinton also said Biden opposed the raid while she supported it, writing in her memoir, Hard Choices, that “I respected Bob [Gates] and Joe [Biden]’s concerns about the risks of a raid, but I came to the conclusion that the intelligence was convincing and the risks were outweighed by the benefits of success.”
In his book Worthy Fights, Panetta wrote: “As others chimed in, the doubts and worries were heavy. Gates raised questions about the strength of our information, noting that our evidence remained entirely circumstantial.
“Clinton acknowledged that more time might give us better intelligence, a sentiment others advanced as well, but she concluded that this was a rare opportunity and believed we should seize it. Biden argued that we still did not have enough confidence that bin Laden was in the compound, and he came out firmly in favor of waiting for more information.”
Gates wrote in his memoir, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, that Biden opposed the raid, writing, “Joe Biden and I were the two primary skeptics, although everyone was asking tough questions.” Gates recounted that “Biden’s primary concern was the political consequences of failure” while saying that he himself was worried about the effect the raid might have on the war in Afghanistan and the relationship with Pakistan.
And Gates said that when “the president went around the table and asked each person for his or her recommendation, Biden was against the operation.” Gates said he and Gen. James Cartwright supported a drone strike, Panetta favored the raid, and “everyone else acknowledged it was a close call but also supported the raid.”
Earlier in the book, Gates said of Biden: “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
