Oliver North: Releasing Raid Details Threatens US

Friday, 13 May 2011 05:42 AM

By Hiram Reisner

Lt. Col. Oliver North says releasing details of the raid that led to Osama bin Laden’s demise jeopardizes U.S. national security. The Obama administration needs to learn to keep its “mouths shut” and not gloat as part of the president’s “victory lap,” he said.

North also told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Thursday that the information gleaned shows “probably dozens of people fairly high up in their regime understood where he was.”

“The information about the intelligence treasure trove, and the discussions about the photographs, and all of the narrative that has come out from this administration, are seriously jeopardizing our efforts to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and to make sure the Pakistanis don’t lose control of theirs,” North said. “These people in this administration have got to learn how to keep their mouths shut. Wouldn’t it be far better if the terrorists and al-Qaida . . . didn’t know what we know?”

North said he believed releasing the covert operation’s details was “necessary to the victory lap that Mr. Obama needed to take to prove that he was commander in chief of the world's most powerful military. “

“And all of this jeopardizes our goals, our national security and our ability to conduct these kinds of operations out in that part of the world in the future,” he said.

Hannity asked North what he thought of the information gathered from the numerous diaries and computers bin Laden kept in his walled Pakistani compound.

“Well, I glean from it that somebody in Pakistan — not just one but probably dozens of people fairly high up in their regime — understood where he was, what he was doing, and how he was doing it.” North said. “Those people need to be rooted out by the Pakistani government and literally locked up or sentenced to some kind of term where they cannot threaten their own government — because that’s what it was.

“Second of all, we've got to make our aid to Pakistan — military, economic, humanitarian, and intelligence — contingent upon them cooperating with us in this effort,” he said. “The Pakistani nukes get in the hands of the Islamists, or if Tehran gets the nuclear weapon that they are trying to build, we are in trouble particularly if we don't have the bases on either side of Iran.”

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