May 06 2011
Obama White House Lies About Sit Room Photo
Folks, it does not take a rocket scientist to prove the White House lied when it put out this photo while claiming it was in the White House Situation Room during the Bin Laden take down (click to enlarge):
This is what the White House Situation Room looks like (click to enlarge):
Not only is the Commander-in-Chief sitting to the side as a mere spectator, hot off the golf course. But the idea the White House claimed this was the Situation Room, and NO news media outlet called them on this bold face lie, is a serious breach in the public trust.
How could anyone confuse these two settings?
Addendum: It looks like where the photo was taken is in the complex area of the situation room, in this tiny side conference room. How strange to find this historic moment being run out of a tiny conference room with POTUS sitting on the sideline.
BTW, this is not even the President’ briefing room – which one would assume would be choice number 2 over the Sit Room itself.
Another question….the raid took 40 minutes to execute. The cam was turned off for 25 minutes says Pinetta. Just what were these people looking at in the little crummy room with laptops, though not Obama, and no large screen?
We have all seen pictures of the “situation room”, the President always sits at the head of the table, or his chair would have been empty if he had been on the golf course and the others had gathered. There is also an order as to who sits to the left and right of the President depending on the mission. But of course Obama may like a free for all with a casual environment.
Kathie,
There would be numerous feeds coming in. There could be satellite feeds showing the IR images, there could be audio, there could be all sorts of data flowing. The only thing off was the video cameras the SEALS were wearing. Chopper cams could have been on, etc
It’s crazy isn’t it?
Can you imagine a meeting occurring in the public or private sector with an underling sitting in the “boss” chair, and the boss sitting over on the side?
Such a thing is so taboo in office life that you don’t even think about doing it. I think many people don’t consciously “see” what is going on in that picture, because it defies reason. Same thing with the shoe-box conference room used for the OBL mission.
What must our allies and enemies think when they see that picture? Innuendo and rumor aside, that picture of POTUS conveys a stark image of presidential disengagement and passivity.
Hillary said something like it was a long 28 minutes, of the picture, and she had allergies, thus the mouth covering, before Panetta said the cameras were off.
The body language in that room shows something unpleasant going down , perhaps a chopper, but, perhaps the cameras were not off and the CIA was giving the Libs in the room a look at what a shoot to kill operation looks like so that later they would not be able to bring the heros up on charges as they are attempting to do to the information gatherers.
Harder for Little Barry and Hillary to charge a team they are supposedly in charge of if they are complicit.
Panetta coming out later and saying the cameras were off perhaps an attempt to provide cover for those in the room to say they never saw the deed they ordered go down thus could never testify.
Dershowitz, Michael Moore and other lefties are wanting evidence as to how the kill went down and who was armed.
This ain’t over watch the left turn themselves into pretzels over our special opps doing the job they were assigned supposedly by their lefty hero, zero, who was obviously called into the room after the work was in progress.
The lefty base will want American heads, that is why missions like this are called black opps and operations details should remain blacked out (silent) not publicised for political gain.
This may well bite Barry in the butt.
http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/john-yoo-this-administration-really.html
Video at the link of John Yoo making the point that the Obama administration has had chances in the past to capture other AQ types and then pump them for information but in each case they have chosen the kill only option.
Thus they have pretty much dried up the intel stream since dead men don’t talk much.
dhunter
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2011/05/06/UN-wants-details-of-bin-Laden-raid/UPI-86011304690869/
Yeah the UN is demanding details here and this could be a major mess if they butt their nose into things
They might not be getting the direct on the scene video feeds but status reporting from the Pentagon or even from Afghanistan or Central Command.
Since the latest reports (version 9.2.8.99 mod 26 revision 34) say that they were basically unopposed in the raid then it supports the opinion that most of the time was spent exploiting currently turned on computers they found since that gives an easier snapshot for actionable intelligence.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/encryption/229402923
According to Hoglund, the effort to recover Osama bin Laden’s data likely started with–and was part of–the raid, in a process that’s known as battlefield exploitation, which seeks to extract as much data as possible while in the field. That’s because it’s much easier to extract information from a computer that’s still running. Even if a hard drive employs encryption, if the drive is still mounted, then it’s vulnerable. Furthermore, if the team can take physical memory RAM snapshots of a live device, this can help crack any encryption.
Here’s how the process works, said Rob Lee, a director at information security company Mandiant and a fellow at The SANS Institute, in a telephone interview: A military team will secure a location but not touch the computers. Next, computer experts–typically, contractors–traveling with the team come in and do a “clean takedown” of any machines. Little if any “deep dive” data analysis will be performed in the field, except perhaps some quick analysis in search of “low-hanging fruit,” for example to note on a captured cell phone any phone numbers that the target recently called, or any recently sent emails. But the true payoff comes when intelligence analysts compare the captured data with “the hundreds of terabytes of data that they’ve already gathered over many years,” for example to see how names, email addresses, and phone numbers match up.
Another point to ponder here is just why there seemed to have been no response from the local cops,military or ISI even though a chopper was being blown up in their front yard.
http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/02/inside-the-situation-room-weve-idd-geronimo/
The President sat stone-faced through much of the events. Several of his aides, however, were pacing. For long periods of time, nobody said a thing, as everyone waited for the next update. In the modern age, Presidents can experience their own military actions like a video game, except that they have no control over the events. They cannot, and would not, intervene to contact the commanders running the operation. So when word came that a helicopter had been grounded, a sign that the plan was already off course, the tension increased.
Minutes later, more word came over the transom. “Visual on Geronimo,” said a disembodied voice, using the agreed-upon code name for America’s most wanted enemy, Osama bin Laden. Word then came that Geronimo had been killed. Only when the last helicopter lifted off some minutes later did the President know that his forces had sustained no casualties.
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=90593
The US Navy SEALS, who conducted the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound early Sunday, messaged to the White House: “Geronimo. E-KIA,” indicating the code name of the operation, “Geronimo”, the enemy has been killed in action. U.S. President Barack Obama appeared in a hastily arranged televised address the night of May 1, 2011, to inform the world that U.S. counterterrorism forces had located and killed Osama bin Laden. The operation, which reportedly happened in the early hours of May 2, targeted a compound in Abbotabad. The nighttime raid resulted in a brief firefight that left bin Laden and several others dead. A U.S. helicopter reportedly was damaged in the raid and later destroyed by U.S. forces. Obama reported that no U.S. personnel were lost in the operation. After a brief search of the compound, the U.S. forces left with bin Laden’s body and presumably anything else that appeared to have intelligence value.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/05/06/bin-laden-wife-spent-years-pakistan-compound/
ISLAMABAD — One of three wives living with Usama bin Laden told Pakistani interrogators she had been staying in the Al Qaeda chief’s hideout for six years, and could be a key source of information about how he avoided capture for so long, a Pakistani intelligence official said Friday.
In its first confirmation of bin Laden’s death, Al Qaeda warned of retaliation in an Internet statement, saying Americans’ “happiness will turn to sadness.”
Bin Laden’s wife, identified as Yemeni-born Amal Ahmed Abdullfattah, said she never left the upper floors of the house the entire time she was there.
She and bin Laden’s other two wives are being interrogated in Pakistan after they were taken into custody following Monday’s American raid on bin Laden’s compound in the town of Abbottabad. Pakistani authorities are also holding eight or nine children who were found there after the U.S. commandos left.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/05/06/bin-laden-wife-spent-years-pakistan-compound/#ixzz1LaZPDRDg
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?ID=219484&R=R1&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
The CIA kept a safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, to conduct surveillance for months on the compound where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was killed, The Washington Post, citing US officials, reported on Thursday.
The safe house was a base of operations for intelligence gathering that used Pakistani informants and other sources to compile a “pattern of life” portrait of the occupants and daily activities at the compound where bin Laden was found, officials told the Post.
We already know that photos of Obama announcing the kill were done from a re enactment after the speech so as not to interrupt the live feed.
Nothing new there that has been the practice since the Reagan days.
Now could this shot from the smaller situation room also be a PR shot and not the actual situation that happened in the adjacent larger room?
Others have suggested that this gives even more weight to the idea that Obama was dragged in from the golf course mid event since it takes a direct grant from him to use the larger situation room and thus they were forced to use the smaller one for this event.
Merlin, that swampland link is bogus. Where in the hell would anyone pace in that tiny room? Trust me. I meet in government conference rooms all day long and no one, I mean no one, sits in the President’s chair.
And yes, the fact they used the smallest room in the complex (the complex being the only place you could get the video, audio and voice network feeds over the crypto gear) is a clear sign Obama did not schedule the room.
AJ
I am looking at this from the viewpoint that the mission was a ,go or at least in progress already, and it was simply presented to Obama as a “use it or lose it chance”.
If their was in fact pacing as the post indicated then yes that would indicate they actually were in the larger room which would have some room to do that and not this packed sardine can.
So after the foot dragging by Obama and Jarrett in the past he was basically presented with the ‘fish or cut bait’ situation.
Does Obama look like a man who woke up that morning knowing that soon a mission was going to be launched that could decide the future of his administration. He’s wearing a windbreaker or jacket with a short sleeve shirt underneath. No suit and tie …
they dragged him into this room … and apparently off the golf course …
One thing that bugs me over this situation is that even if Osama was a dead man walking until the troops arrived they had the chance of grabbing one of the closet couriers to him and he could have been squeezed for the location of a lot of folks as secondary targets.
Now that in fact could have been the plan but it got rendered moot when that guy was taken out at the very beginning when he fired on them.
I also wonder who he talked to during his 16 hours of decision making time ? My bet is it was his political advisers and they convinced him he had to say yea or his chances in 2012 would be gone … exit question … Do all of his political advisers have enough security clearance to be told about a mission like this ?
I doubt it …
Here is a theory that unifies the Time Swampland account and some of the White House Insider theory.
The key part from the WHI: Panetta has been doing the prep and training for the OBL special forces raid with the POTUS out of the loop.
So, go back to the the swampland timeline: Obama gets his three options, but they are pitches at core approaches, not immediate decisions: 1) Wait 2) Bomb 3) Direct Assault. No great rush or anything, so Obama decides to sleep on it and wait 16 hours to make a decision.
Finally, friday morning Obama makes the call, thinking the mission will take weeks to shape up. POTUS has authorized the helo assault, but cheerfully can go about his business because it is not imminent (he thinks). However, Panetta swings into action, and immediately gets ready to send in the SEALs.
On Sunday, the non-POTUS players all gather in the small conference room, and watch the mission unfold. The actuality of the assault is not presented to Obama until he is on the golf course as an in progress – but authorized – fait accompli. Thus, he takes a chair in the corner in the tiny conference room.
The Swampland link does have photos from that day with Obama in his golf outfit with him at the head of the table in the main situation room. These photos (and the series of meetings that took place in the main situation room) all take place AFTER the raid. The tense part of the raid was likely over by 4 or 5 in the afternoon, but the announcement wasn’t for another few hours.
AJ,
For some reason this entire episode is echoing of the Pat Tillman saga. First killed in action courageously fighting ALQ, then finally the Army admits it was ‘friendly fire’ that ended his life. There are some many inconsistencies and WTF issues that I can honestly say whatever happened we have not been told the entire story. Maybe there is a good reason for that…I dunno.
What I really want to know is what role did Raymond Davies play in all this?
Also try to consider how Osama would have perceived this raid as it was unfolding. He would have heard the helicopters but they might not have sounded like any he had heard before. He would have heard his one guard shooting, but he probably wouldn’t have heard the return fire of our forces. He would have heard some odd mechanical “clackity-clack” sound as they would have likely been using silenced weapons to keep the sound of any gunfight from sounding too large lest it cause a larger response from Pakistani authorities. Neighbors would have heard the one weapon firing, the helicopters, and likely the crash when the one helicopter came down with its tail boom across the compound wall.
I have heard reports that explosives were used to gain entry and breech barricades. One tactic is that you never attempt to gain entry through existing doors as those might be rigged. You are sometimes better off blowing your own entry and entering at a point completely unexpected by your target.
From details leaking out about the building itself and from the fact that it took nearly 30 minutes to get to the top floor, the place might have been constructed as a house within a house. Or a completely different structure inside of an outer facade. There is information about false walls, barricades, etc. inside the house. There might have even been internal false stairwells, halls to nowhere, a regular Winchester Mystery House. This might also explain why the contractor the built it has been arrested. That layout would have been very suspicious.
Our taking out of the son, the couriers, and the one wife that apparently rushed the operators probably didn’t sound like gunshots. Again it was probably all “clackity-clack” from silenced weapons. It would have made it very difficult for OBL to figure out what was going on if he had never heard that before.