CIA Director Leon Panetta Confirms That US Did Not Tell Pakistan About Bin Laden Raid For Fear That It Would Get Back To Osama

Time Magazine reports:

In his first interview since commanding the mission to kill Osama bin Laden, CIA chief Leon Panetta tells TIME that U.S. officials feared that Pakistan could have undermined the operation by leaking word to its targets. Long before Panetta ordered Vice Admiral William McRaven, head of the Joint Special Forces Command, to undertake the mission at 1:22 p.m. on Friday, the CIA had been gaming out how to structure the raid. Months prior, the U.S. had considered expanding the assault to include coordination with other countries, notably Pakistan. But the CIA ruled out participating with its nominal South Asian ally early on because “it was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardize the mission. They might alert the targets,” Panetta says.

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/03/cia-chief-breaks-silence-u-s-ruled-out-involving-pakistan-in-bin-laden-raid-early-on/#ixzz1LMeQkcgZ

I did not need a CIA Director's statement to figure that one out. Yesterday, before Panetta came out and bluntly said it, I wrote: "In fact, not getting Pakistani approval seems like a rather obvious move by the United States when seeking that approval could possibly compromise the mission of finally catching or killing Osama." Tweet