Rep. Peter King Never Thought This Day Would Come; Gives Obama Credit
About 90 minutes before President Obama addressed the country last night to confirm that Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks and many others, had been killed in Pakistan, Rep. Peter King received a phone call from Michael Leiter, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center at The White House.
“He told me the President is going to speak, and told me that Bin Laden had been killed,” King, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said. “It was a great moment.”
And not just because it represented the end of a manhunt that went on for nearly a decade. “I lost many constituents on September 11th, many close friends,” said King, a Republican representing parts of Long Island. “It actually took a few seconds for it to sink in, to be honest with you. After all these years, somehow there was this feeling that we might not ever get Bin Laden.”
Thanks to the incredible courage of a group of Navy SEALs, and to Obama’s foresight, King and thousands of others feel a sense of closure today. “I give President Obama tremendous credit for this,” King said. “He did what he had to do as Commander-in-Chief, and it was not an easy decision to make. If that had not been Bin Laden, if civilians had been killed, you can imagine what they would be saying around the world.”
Though the two politicians have had different opinions on homeland security issues over the years, King has never questioned the President’s commitment to the mission in Afghanistan, and to fighting terrorism. To show anything but support for Obama on a day like today is, in King’s view, bad for his Party.
Perhaps wisely, King was not told ahead of time that intelligence officials suspected they had found Bin Laden, but this does not bother him. (“The less people who know about these things, the better,” he told Imus.) That the Pakistani government probably knew where Bin Laden was and provided him with cover perturbs King to no end.
“Last night may have been a turning point, because now they realize what we can do, and we’re wiling to do it,” King said of Pakistan. Careful not to undermine any diplomatic efforts, he added, “It’s hard for me to figure out how Bin Laden could have been in that location without the Pakistanis knowing about it.”
In King’s opinion, Bin Laden would have been better off alive than dead, so that the U.S. could interrogate him. That being said, killing Bin Laden in a skillfully planned attack is preferable to him being murdered in a random bombing.
The fear that Al-Qaeda will retaliate for Bin Laden’s death looms over the U.S., but King assured Imus that agencies in New York and around the world are working together, “looking for any strand of intelligence that could indicate either an attack from overseas, or an attack by homegrown terrorists.”
While the stated goal of sending troops to Afghanistan back in 2001 had been to find Bin Laden, King insisted that the U.S. must not up and leave now that he is dead. “Even though Al-Qaeda is going to be weakened…Al-Qaeda is still a force,” he said. “If we should pull out too quickly, they will again have that sanctuary.”
Any political boost enjoyed by President Obama in the wake of Bin Laden’s death has, in King’s view, been earned. “No one in our country or our party should debate or question what the President did here,” he said. “He did the right thing, he did it brilliantly, and he deserves all the credit for it.”
Unlike many of his colleagues, King did not attend, nor did he pay much attention to, Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where Obama and comedian Seth Myers were relentless in their pursuit of Donald Trump. He recalled with great fondness Imus’s 1996 performance at the fated event, likening it to “Moses on the mountaintop.”
That’s one way of putting it.
-Julie Kanfer
Reader Comments (1)
Interesting that by Bill Oreilly time Peter King...who supported the IRA terrorists...had
heard that waterboarding had provided the information that led to mass killer Osoma's
Compound
I can still remember Fox news anchor Shep Smith(Upset about support for waterboarding) yellin..."my country doesn't torture"
meaning that America can play by the rules in trying to find justice...
As Don Imus says "Everybody thinks its funny...till its about them"....same thing applies
to torture
doug petepiece
Canada