(AP)
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Hillary Rodham Clinton talked a reluctant President Obama into killing Osama bin Laden — after the president canceled plans for the mission three times, an explosive new book claims.
Obama feared that the daring Navy SEALs operation to raid bin Laden’s hidden Pakistani compound “might go tragically wrong” and he would be blamed for it, author Rich Miniter says.
His account challenges a key element of Obama’s re-election campaign — that his decision to kill the world’s No. 1 terrorist symbolizes his resolute leadership.
The book — “Leading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him” — describes Obama as being heavily influenced by three women — Clinton; his wife, Michelle; and longtime adviser and confidante Valerie Jarrett.
The book cites an unnamed source in the Joint Special Operations Command as saying that Obama canceled a mission to kill bin Laden in January 2011, as well as another in February and a third in March.
Miniter, a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Sunday Times of London and Washington Times, said Jarrett succeeded in talking Obama out of each of the three missions.
Jarrett, an old Chicago ally of Obama’s, had opposed the idea since the beginning of his administration, according to Britain’s Daily Mail, which obtained a copy of the book.
“She worried about a backlash against the president if the operation failed, or even if it succeeded,” the book says.
As a result, Obama was “studiously undecided” about what to do about bin Laden early in his term.
“He refused to weigh in or commit himself on even small matters related to a possible strike on bin Laden,” Miniter wrote.
But Clinton, his 2008 primary foe whom he tapped as his secretary of state, fought for a military strike during her regular weekly meetings with the president.
“She knew her husband had paid a political price for failing to stop bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks. She knew Obama’s presidency could be mortally wounded if he had bin Laden in his gun sights and didn’t fire,” the book says.
As the two powerful women fought for the president’s ear, the CIA overcame concerns regarding intelligence reports about the Abbotobad compound.
Clinton’s ties to then-CIA Director Leon Panetta and David Petraeus, who led US and allied forces in Afghanistan at the time of the SEALs raid, played a crucial role in winning approval for the raid, the book says.
Obama’s reluctance eventually eased. “He knew Clinton was right,” the book, on sale today, claims. But he remained uneasy about giving the final “kill” order.
He was even seized by a “fourth moment of indecision” on May 1, 2011, when it was supposed to be carried out.
The White House later claimed Operation Neptune Spear was delayed a day because of poor weather. But Miniter says the US Air Force Combat Meteorological Center’s own report said weather conditions were “ideal” that day.
When word of Miniter’s impending book circulated last month, the White House said it was an “utter fabrication” that Obama called off the raid three times. Miniter said he stood by his sources.