There was a rising chorus of criticism from retired officials and troops Monday after President Trump slammed a retired admiral who led the Osama bin Laden raid and suggested the U.S. should have killed the terrorist mastermind sooner.
Trump dismissed Bill McRaven as a “Hillary Clinton fan” and “Obama backer” on Sunday when questioned in a Fox News interview about the admiral, who headed U.S. Special Operation Command and criticized the president’s attacks on the media as a threat to the country.
“I know Bill McRaven and was honored to serve beside him. I know just a few years ago he was personally going out on counterterrorism raids with his forces and the president is simply wrong. He is uninformed and is pushing an idea that I think is not helpful,” retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was ousted as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan after making disparaging comments about the Obama administration, told CNN.
Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, grandson and son of presidents, and a former Navy Reserve officer, took to Twitter to defend McRaven.
“Having served in Afghanistan with Adm. McRaven, I have personally witnessed his patriotism and love of country. He is an American hero and has always served our country with honor. I’m grateful for his service and sacrifices for our freedom,” Bush tweeted.
The Pentagon had a much more reserved response to the controversy on Monday.
“Retired Adm. McRaven is a private citizen and is guaranteed the freedom of speech and expression, and free to share his opinion. Here at the Department of Defense we are laser-focused on defending the nation,” Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob Manning said.
McRaven, who retired in 2014 and did not publicly back Clinton or President Barack Obama, has taken several public swipes at Trump, including a 2017 blog post when he was the chancellor of the University of Texas System saying the president’s claim that the press is the enemy of Americans is the “greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime.”
The retired admiral also spoke out against Trump in a letter to The Washington Post after the president revoked the security clearance of John Brennan, the former CIA director.
“Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation,” McRaven wrote to Trump in the published letter.
Brennan, a harsh and vocal Trump critic, came to McRaven’s defense after the Fox interview.
“You constantly remind us how substantively shallow and dishonest you are on so many fronts, which is why we are in such dangerous times,” Brennan tweeted about Trump. “You would need an extremely tall ladder to get anywhere near the level of intellect, competence and integrity of Bill McRaven and your predecessors.”
McRaven told CNN on Sunday that he stands by his opinion on Trump’s attacks on the press, and the president responded Monday morning with a new broadside on the 2011 raid into Pakistan that was led by McRaven and killed bin Laden after years of searching by the CIA.
“Of course we should have captured Osama Bin Laden long before we did. I pointed him out in my book just BEFORE the attack on the World Trade Center. President Clinton famously missed his shot. We paid Pakistan Billions of Dollars & they never told us he was living there,” Trump tweeted.
A Navy SEAL who was on the bin Laden raid and claims to have fired the shots that killed the al Qaeda terrorist leader disputed the suggestion that the U.S. was slow to mete out justice.
“The mission to get bin Laden was bipartisan. We all wanted to get him as soon as we could,” tweeted Robert O’Neill, who once had a private dinner with Trump at the White House.
When questioned whether bin Laden could have been found sooner, O’Neill tweeted, “We could only fly so fast, bro.”
