Rumsfeld: Bush Deserves Credit for bin Laden Killing

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden should go to the George W. Bush administration for developing the capabilities that enabled the successful operation.

Rumsfeld has written about the bin Laden operation in a preface to the paperback version of his 2011 best-seller “Known and Unknown: A Memoir,” which is being released this month.

Discussing the operation in an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, Rumsfeld says: “It was a tremendous accomplishment and a great deal of the credit should go to the men and women in our armed forces, particularly in our special operations forces.

“I think the decision made by the Obama administration was the right decision. Others speculated that maybe they should have just used cruise missiles and not run the risk of putting in this SEAL team. My view is they came out with intelligence gathered on site, which they wouldn’t have obtained if they used cruise missiles.

“I should add that there was no way they could have done that when we arrived in the administration in 2001. The capabilities that were used to kill Osama bin Laden, both intelligence and special operations forces, were investments that were made during the Bush administration, and each president has available to them only what is left by their predecessor.”

Asked if he approves of President Obama making the decision to kill bin Laden and the successful SEAL operation a campaign issue, Rumsfeld responds: “I think it’s inevitable. What bothers me is not that it gets mentioned, but that the White House has been leaking out information about how we operate in the armed forces, and I would have to imagine that the people in the Department of Defense are grinding their teeth wishing that so many aspects of how they do what they do have not been leaked out, because unquestionably it will make more difficult our special operations forces’ task in the future.

See the exclusive excerpt of Donald Rumsfeld discussing President George W. Bush's role in the bin Laden raid:






Click to see the full Newsmax interview  "Rumsfeld to Newsmax: Sanctions, Diplomacy Won't Work Against Iran"

See other exclusive exerpts:

• Rumsfeld: Cutting Defense Budget Wrong, Matter of Survival
• Rumsfeld: Obama's 'Weakness Is Provocative' to Nation's Enemies
  
• Rumsfeld to Newsmax: Military, Not Presidents, Should Engage in Targeted Kills