President Biden remembered the killing of Osama bin Laden 10 years later on Sunday, saying it is now time to bring American soldiers home after the nation’s longest war.
Mr. Biden, as vice president, was alongside former President Obama when the call was made to take bin Laden out by Seal Team 6, which raided his compound in May of 2011.
“It is a moment I will never forget—the intelligence professionals who had painstakingly tracked him down; the clarity and conviction of President Obama in making the call; the courage and skill of our team on the ground,” Mr. Biden said in a statement Sunday. “It had been almost ten years since our nation was attacked on 9/11 and we went to war in Afghanistan, pursuing al Qaeda and its leaders.”
But at the time, Mr. Biden was opposed to the raid, according to numerous insider accounts of others “in the room,” including Mr. Obama.
“Joe also weighed in against the raid, arguing that given the enormous consequences of failure, I should defer any decision until the intelligence community was more certain that bin Laden was in the compound,” the former president wrote in his 2020 memoir “A Promised Land.”
It’s been another 10 years since the killing that American troops have been overseas in Afghanistan, noted the current president’s statement.
“As a result of those efforts, as we bring to an end America’s longest war and draw down the last of our troops from Afghanistan, al Qaeda is greatly degraded there,” Mr. Biden said.
The administration plans to bring home the remaining troops in Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021 — 20 years after the deadly terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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