Posted on 04/13/2009 5:44:56 AM PDT by Alter Kaker
Throughout the past four days, White House officials played down Obama's role in the hostage drama. Until yesterday, he made no public statements about the pirates.
In fact, aides said yesterday, Obama had been briefed 17 times since he returned from his trip abroad, including several times from the White House Situation Room. And without giving too many details, senior White House officials made it clear that Obama had provided the authority for the rescue.
"The president's focus was on saving and protecting the life of the captain," one adviser said. Friday evening, after a National Security Council telephone update, Obama granted U.S. forces what aides called "the authority to use appropriate force to save the life of the captain." On Saturday at 9:20 a.m., Obama went further, giving authority to an "additional set of U.S. forces to engage in potential emergency actions."
A top military official, Vice Adm. William E. Gortney, commander of the Fifth Fleet, explained that Obama issued a standing order that the military was to act if the captain's life was in immediate danger.
"Our authorities came directly from the president," he said. "And the number one authority for incidents if we were going to respond was if the captain's life was in immediate danger. And that is the situation in which our sailors acted."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
So this is one are he didn’t try and micro-manage. Would Clinton have been so hands off?
FOX said he had something like 17 briefings on the issue? My guess is he hid under his desk until someone else made a decision. There's no way an inexperienced community organizer could have pulled this off alone. In my opinion, he let someone else deal with it.
Of course, the media will be more than happy to give him the credit for it.
That’s one messed up image.
actually..obama quickly trained the sniper himself in just four days..he is the Chosen one..
I am still waiting to hear what he has to say about the North Korean rocket launch.
“he authority to use appropriate force to save the life of the captain.” On Saturday at 9:20 a.m
Really? Too bad he didn’t give it Friday or Thursday. Before the Captain first tried to escape.
Like who?
I'm thinking they asked him 17 times for permission to do something, and 17 times he adopted a wait-and-see attitude. Finally, when the Navy took action, Obama stepped up and said, "That was my idea."
Not quite a President Ford - SS MAYAGUEZ moment.
I thought the Commander in Chief had to give the order?/Just Asking - seoul62.......
Four days to be forced into making a decision. That’s change you can believe in.
I’m glad the captain is safe. I’m glad Obama did not stay in the way.
I would like to think that the standing ROE for all of our military is to ocounter deadly force against Americans with deadly force. So, I’m not sure what Obama’s role in this could be, other than not getting in the way.
The article mentions this is his first military test...no, his first military test happened day one, since we are in two wars.
I knew the cheerleading would come, but it is still hard to swallow. At Huffington’s site, somebody actually suggested that this proves Obama would have been a better September 12 president than Bush. So, its getting deep.
Funny thing - I don’t think Obama wants to play this up. Somehow killing black muslim teenager ‘fishermen’ will hurt his cred as a ‘citizen of the world’.
No no no, you've got it all wrong...
Obama was remote-linked to the sniper rifle via his PS3. He was the one that pulled the trigger, all the way from DC.
The loon is taking credit for the performance of a military that he’s not even qualified to join, let alone lead?
Nice move, good job... but
If it would have been Bush they would be all over him for not getting approval from congress before taking military action.
Also when we kill and capture many terrorist around the world from 2001-2008 you never heared action autorized by Bush.
He didn't give the order to use force. He gave the order to allow the SEAL team to use force at their discretion, if they felt the life of the captain was in danger.
Sounds about right to me.
Oh please. We'd all be bowing to Allah 7 times a day with our Mullah-n-chief.
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