There goes the CT strategy in Afghanistan.

...when Tom was going to pick this one up. I knew it couldn't be too long.

How many of the people in that meeting were qualified to render an informed opinion? Then we hear that they felt that they could come up with the odds of success instead of recommending go or no go.

At least Biden was responsive. After Rumsfeld's Tora Bora fiasco, the President had to take the chance.

BTW, the photo above appears to be badly Photoshoped.

Greg Gutfeld made the same point on Fox News.

What qualities led to Biden's selection in the first place, other than cold calculations of political alignments and Senate support.

How was Joe Biden wrong in opposing the Bin Laden raid?

Or not. I'm just playing off the McCarthy quote....

Fair to ask what the Bin Laden take down accomplished strategically. What was achieved besides revenge satisfaction, a political win for BO, and fetishizing of spec ops? Al Qaeda and its affiliates persist, Muslims and others in that part of the world still view the US as biased and heavy-handed, U.S.-Pakistan relations remain problematic, and moderates in Pakistan have a harder time standing up to the crazies.

Maybe Biden argued some rational points, but was overruled by domestic political considerations. Imagine election year claims from the US GOP about Obama going easy on OBL, or fumbling the operation by seeking cooperation from the GOPkst. It might have been a tougher nut to crack, but maybe the USG could/should have figured out a way to get the Pakistanis involved, either to foster the appearance of cooperation or to better highlight GOPkst's duplicity. Or the US could have dimed Osama out to the Indians.

The pitch to GOPkst could have been, "Now you know that we know where Osama is so no funny business!!" Or the US could have just dropped a 2000-lb bomb on the compound, calling it a gas leak. But none of that would have been as cathartic as the spec ops raid, take down, disposal of the body, and the subsequent propaganda victory lap for the President.

Or maybe the intel haul from the intact compund made the raid worthwhile....

...that Pakistan has never been and will never be our ally. Given that, exposing their duplicity and triggering the geopolitical tantrum it set off was just fine by me. However, aren't there still some people out there who think that the cooperation of Pakistan is theoretically on the table and crucial for our success in the region? Because I don't see how those people could see the Bin Laden raid as anything other than huge strategic blunder.

I find it reassuring that Biden was against the raid. From Biden's description, he was the only one against it. Somebody has to play devil's advocate to help ensure decisions that involve great amounts of risk don't fall victim to group think. One only needs to look to the botched Iran hostage crisis rescue and the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 for examples of where cooler heads should have prevailed. I also think it is somewhat unfair to say that Biden was wrong about the raid. If the operation hadn't been executed, we would have never known who had been right or wrong. The operation being a success doesn't discount the fact that great risk was involved, as evidenced by the loss of a helicopter on the mission. The mission was worth the helicopter, but would it have been worth the lives on the helicopter if the accident had been worse?

Don't spoon feed on the Bin Laden death fairy tale. Grow up people.

Joe Biden took a tough vote that cost him in the Democratic primary race for President in 07-08. He voted yes on a test vote where the politically correct vote was no on an Iraq War funding measure. The reason he voted this way was because funding to up armor Humvees was included in the measure. A no vote jeapordized that program and also went back on a promise Biden had made to the troops during a visit there.

While I'm on it, Biden cast votes and made policy as Chair of Senate Foreign Relations while his son served in Iraq. Unlike most of the power elite in Washington, he had a personal stake in these matters.

So it is easy sit back in your comfortable chair and take pot shots at the man but he is willing to give his opinion no matter what the conventional wisdom is. By the way, are you talking about Afghanistan and how he opposed its "surge" because it did not ensure success in that endeavor and also could lead to an open ended committment that the military leadership expected? The jury is still out on this whole episode of our history. I believe we are winning but nothing is permanent, especially in that forsaken country.

The Bin Laden raid was an unequivocal success. However, I (and VP Biden) are old enough to remember Desert One and how much that episode contributed to Carter's loss in the 1980 election. You, Mr. Ricks, should be old enough to remember that also and to understand that opposition to the Bin Laden mission was not an irresponsible position especially considering the paucity of hard evidence confirming the identity of the compound's occupants. Given the fragile state of relations with Pakistan, a Son Tay like failure (remember that?) would have resulted in worse if you can imagine, impacts on this presidency and the quest to find Bin Laden.

A few writers have tossed these two operations into the mix and called them failures. I imagine a lot of people do not know or care what really happened and in the case of Desert One, the cause of the failure.

First, Son Tay was not a failure. Did we rescue prisoners? No. But the operation was executed perfectly by well-rehearsed professionals. Further, the assault element made a "mistake" and landed not at the prison, but at a nearby school complex. Troops came pouring out of the buildings and were mowed down. Those troops were tall Caucasians. Those troops were reputed to have been Russian air defense instructors - a training mission. I do not believe this was a mistake just as I don't believe that 2 out of 3 helicopters land precisely where they were supposed to and the 3rd, with Bulll Simons aboard goes to the wrong location. Not very likely. It is far easier to believe that the prisoners had been moved a few days before and our imagery did not detect that. The men were crying on the return trip because they only had one passion - to free the prisoners. There was no failure.

Desert one was a failure for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and our mission planning systems. In the shadow of Vietnam, our generals were afraid that their own staff mrembers would leak word of the mission. As a result, planning was highly compartmentalized and no joint rehearsal was ever held. President Carter was cheap and did not want to use our best helicopters for the mission. As a result, older Navy helicopters slated to be retired were used. He made this choice because the helicopters were to have been left behind under one of the plans. No rehearsal was ever held between the Air Force tankers and the Marine piloted helicopters. That led to the tragic ground accident at Desert One. All the Services just had to get into the act. Yet the Services never trained together. Would the rescue have worked otherwise? I don't know; but it would have been harder than the raid to kill UBL.

As a direct result of Desert One, the United States developed a dedicated Special Operations aviation unit - the 160th SOAR. Delta Force became even more professional and the SEALs, SF, and Rangers further broadened and honed their skills. In every respect, Desert One was a failure, but we learned from it and created an unmatched spectrum of raiding and rescue forces.

Oh, and you forgot the Mayaguez Incident. That was a fuck-up with the freeing of the ship and crew, but unnecessary Marine and Air Force losses. That was bad intelligence sharing, bad ad hoc planning, and screwed-up communications. But, some Air Force fighter pilots performed particularly well under pressure and were instrumental in freeing the hostages.

It could have also ended disastrously. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that...

The point I was trying to make about both of those missions had more to do with the unintended consequences than the specific causes. Son Tay was a failure if you believe that the mission was to rescue captured POWs. The analogy to the Bin Laden mission would have worked if Bin Laden was not at that compound. I think that all the contemporaneous reporting indicated that the President ordered the mission to proceed without firm confirmation that the target was at that location.

Desert 1 was a failure at every level except for the actions of Major Meadows. As I recall (and I haven't read or thought about this for years), he infiltrated Iran and provided unsurpassed intelligence. Talk about balls! President Carter played small ball as he often did (speaking of balls, it is said that he was scheduler for the White House tennis court) and completely messed up the planning as you point out. The planners did not account for sand in the desert (Rumsfeld replicated this mistake when he redlined the unit that placed mats on sand for the helicopters during the Iraq invasion. He never took credit for that screwup). The practice and execution were horrific. As you correctly point out, the good that came out of this sorry episode was the attention to special operations that culminated in the Bin Laden extrication, dead or alive. The nutty NGO people in Yemen are just another example of this professionalism that can be attributed to that clusterf.

The Mayaguez was an incident I did forget. I think that is different for many reasons including: it was a maritime seizure of a vessel at sea, it involved mostly if not all conventional forces, and it was not as publicized as the other two. As a matter of fact, I have been very interested in this and would really appreciate any book recommendations you might have on this topic.

I might have been a bit sarcastic but I was replying to a pretty cynical post. It seems fairly obvious that Biden has gotten under Ricks' skin and is going to be the recipient of some criticism from him. I actually worked for Biden at a couple of junctures in my career and really like him. He does like to talk (and has obviously paid a price for this habit) but he is knowledgeable and did take some heat for doing the right thing on the Humvee up armor vote. He also was the first public figure I know who called out Karzai for being crazy and isolated. He called him "the Mayor of Kabul" to illustrate his lack of control of the rest of the country. I also appreciate that he is not one of these armchair patriots who don't mind spending other people's lives to prove a point. His son Beau deployed a couple of times I believe so he did have a personal stake in the war which is more than most of the decision makers can say. So thanks for the reply and I hope this explains my post in more detail.