Fascinating read here. I'm sure I'll get the book.
http://news.yahoo.com/correcting-fairy- ... 33289.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Two interesting paragraphs really nail this:
"There was a choice that night,” Pfarrer told TheDC. “There was a choice to keep the mission secret.” America, Pfarrer explained, could have left things alone for “weeks or months … even though there was evidence left on the ground there …
and use the intelligence and finish off al-Qaida.”
But Obama’s announcement, he said, “rendered moot all of the intelligence that was gathered from the nexus of al-Qaida. The computer drives, the hard drives, the videocasettes, the CDs, the thumb drives, everything. Before that could even be looked through, the political decision was made to take credit for the operation.”
I'm sure this isn't the only covert operation where this has happened, but it's a shame that a gold mine like that was thrown away so that he could get a short uptick in his popularity rating.