President Obama yesterday took a 14,000-mile victory lap to Kabul — landing in the Afghan capital under cover of darkness in a brash gesture on the one-year anniversary of Osama Bin Laden’s death at the hands of Navy SEALs.
“We can see the light of a new day on the horizon,” Obama told the nation in a televised address from Afghanistan amid cries from Republicans that he has turned the bin Laden victory into political grist.
Standing in front of hulking military vehicles, Obama gave a pep talk to more than 3,000 troops gathered in a hangar at Bagram Air Force Base — where SEALs launched their strike on bin Laden.
“It’s going to be broadcast back home during prime time,” he told them. “So all I want to do is just say thank you.”
Obama invoked bin Laden, as he and his aides have been doing for a week, saying, “Slowly and systematically, we have been able to decimate the ranks of al Qaeda, and a year ago, we were able to finally bring Osama bin Laden to justice.”
In his address, Obama pointed to the coming end of US military operations in Afghanistan, saying, “Here in the predawn darkness of Afghanistan, we can see the light of a new day on the horizon.”
Obama’s anniversary visit came a day after he denied conducting any “excessive celebration” to boost his campaign.
Hours after he left Afghanistan, at least six people were killed in an attack in Kabul carried out by a suicide bomber in a car and militants disguised in burqas. The target was a compound housing hundreds of foreign workers, but it was not immediately known if any Americans were victims.
The Taliban claimed responsibility, saying it was a response to the president’s trip.
In other fast-paced developments on the anniversary:
* Mitt Romney, accompanied by former mayor Rudy Giuliani, visited a Greenwich Village fire station that lost 11 firefighters on Sept. 11, 2011.
* Obama signed an agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai laying out the basis for the US commitment in Afghanistan past 2014. It doesn’t specify troop presence or funding commitment, but lets US forces provide continued training of Afghan security and targeting of al Qaeda.
* The mission was kept under wraps, and the White House denied a New York Post report — citing Afghan sources — on the trip yesterday morning.
* The president said he recognized that Americans are “tired of war,” but said defeating al Qaeda “is within our reach.”
Obama, who just days after the bin Laden raid warned about “spiking the football,” has come under fire himself for milking the operation in a campaign ad.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) took Obama to task for chest beating on bin Laden this week, saying, “You know the thing about heroes, they don’t brag.”
But McCain yesterday praised Obama’s trip, telling CNN, “It’s always good when the president goes to where young men and women are in harm’s way.”
In a sign of the continued security threats in Afghanistan, Obama and Karzai signed the agreement after midnight local time in the presidential palace.
“It would be a saintly act of renunciation for Obama not to take political advantage of the killing of bin Laden,” said Leo Ribuffo, a history professor at George Washington University.
But, he added, “Any president would have made the same decision. Obama was in a sense lucky that it occurred on his watch. It’s not as if he personally did the surveillance or led the team jumping into Pakistan.”
For his part, Romney said he’ll deliver security to Americans as commander-in-chief, just minutes after he delivered six pizzas to the firehouse.
Romney, who was accompanied by Giuliani at Engine 24, Ladder 5, blasted Obama for trying to use the killing of bin Laden for political purposes.
“I think politicizing it and trying to draw a distinction between himself and myself was an inappropriate use of a very important event that brought Americans together,” Romney said.
He accused Obama of mischaracterizing comments the presumptive GOP presidential nominee made in 2007.
“Of course I would have ordered taking out Osama bin Laden,” Romney said.
“I said the same thing that Joe Biden [said at the time]. It was naive of the president to say [publicly] he would go into Pakistan” without that country’s blessing.
Romney faced another foreign- policy controversy yesterday. His national security adviser, Richard Grenell, who is openly gay, announced his resignation after social conservatives who oppose gay rights objected to his appointment, The Washington Post reported.