for any military intervention from distances where they were. now you have former defense secretary gates backing them up on that. no one has come out with any contradiction to the idea it was impossible to get military assets there. that s right. i think we re still trying to figure out what happened there. you have the release of some suspects, photographs of some suspects they pulled from some of the surveillance video. still there s a mystery about what went on on the ground, who actually was involved, and you have this president be cautious in jumping to conclusions about any of these sorts of international incidents. i think the republicans have always felt this was a president who was soft on terror, loathe to use the word terrorism. this is part of that whole idea they believed for awhile. this issa thing today, drawing a distinction between act of terror and terrorism. we have to hear him saying it. we have him saying this. the words that are being used
and we think the obama administration is court. if the obama administration was so concerned about bin laden s killing, offending the terrorists, why are they making it a centerpiece of their campaign. reporter: so we could be looking at this dragging on through the second anniversary. shepard: for the first time we see a memo that got the ball rolling, right? reporter: today we obligated a hand written memo by c.i.a. director person nature director panetta after he got the go ahead from the white house. the letter that started the raid killed bin laden is dated april 26 and there was a again call from the white house saying president made the decision on the compound, and the direction was to go in there and get bin laden and if he was not there to get out. this memo was carried by time magazine, and they reported that defense secretary gates and the vice president had reservations about the operation.
minnesota, missouri and maine all hold contests in the next week and a half. the candidates have a lot of ground to cover and not much time. for mitt romney this day after his big victory in florida turned out to be pretty rock yichlt during an interview this morning, romney gave his opponents a new gift. yet another inelegant remark that s easy, very easy to take out of context. i m in this race because i care about americans. i m not concerned about the very poor. we have a safety net there. if it need repair i ll fix it. i m not concerned about the very rich. they re doing just fine. i m concerned about the very heart of america, the 90-95% of americans who right now are struggling. i ll continue to take that message across the nation. last question but i got to ask you. you just said i m not concerned about the very poor because they have a safety net. and i think there are lots of very poor americans who are struggling who would say that sounds odd. can you explain t
enemy. here at the white house they don t want to box the president in, here is white house spokesman jay carney. the surge of 30,000 forces was substantial building on 68,000 that were already there, and that is a robust, substantial number of american forces. reporter: we know the president is in decision-making mode. he has a leader later today with defense secretary gates and he will reveal his plan on afghanistan tomorrow, jon. jon: obviously leading republican contenders for president are going to have some thoughts on this. any advance word from them? reporter: yeah, there have been some talking about the idea of wanting to start pulling out troops, some of the leading republicans on capitol hill are saying allow the commander s to do their thing, to really take the fight to the enemy. here is arizona senator john mccain. finally, if it s in the area of withdrawal of support troops then i understand how that might be accomplished, and i d like to
chiefs. between them, they bring deep experience in virtually every domain. land, air, space, sea, cyber. they both have something else. for the first time, the chairman and vice chairman will have the experience of leading combat operations in the years since 2007. president obama also nominating general ray odierno. you might remember ray odierno. he s the former commander of u.s. forces in iraq. he will be the new chief of staff. this major overhaul didn t start today. the president s also moving the cia chief, leon panetta, to defense secretary, and bringing the soon to retire general david petraeus home to run the cia. all this shuffling can lead to some big unanswered questions. with us now from washington, cnn national security contributor, fran townsend. she advised president bush and is now on the cia s external advisory board. fran, several of the bush holdovers, defense secretary gates and admiral mike mullen, the military s top officer, they will be leaving.