What? No. Never! Biden never stretches the truth. He is a paragon of rectitude.
Marc Sageman, a former CIA officer who worked with Islamist fighters battling the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and later wrote several books about terrorism networks and radicalization, said he was puzzled by Biden’s portrayal of al-Zawahri and wondered where the purported role came from.
“Zawahri is a legitimate target,” he said on Aug. 2, a day after the president’s address. “But the justification they gave yesterday was inaccurate. I doubt it. I strongly, strongly doubt it.”
A senior administration official declined to say whether Biden’s wording was part of his prepared remarks drafted by aides who had consulted with the intelligence community and other counterterrorism experts, or whether the president had ad-libbed it.
The interesting part of the story is the tech used to destroy the cockroach. Hellfires have come a long way from their origins as tank-busters back in the 80s. The R9X version that got al-Zawahiri is basically a non-explosive, UAV-fired sniper missile. A guided, six-blade, 100 pound Ginsu knife that inflicts minimal collateral damage. Also interesting is that this was not a military strike. This was a sanctioned CIA assassination operation and the Biden Administration was not at all shy about announcing it as such. Our spooks have access to a pretty wicked toy box.