Trump only agreed to botched Yemen raid because military said Obama wouldnt do it

[link to www.independent.co.uk]

"Military officials got Donald Trump to agree to the botched Yemen raid by suggesting Barack Obama would never have had the courage to do it, it has been reported.

The raid, which had been planned for two months before Mr Trump’s arrival in the Oval Office, killed 30 civilians and one US Navy SEAL but failed to kill its alleged target, al Qaeda leader Qassim al Rimi.

The raid on a suspected al Qaeda camp in a remote village in Yemen’s central Bayda province on 29 January was Mr Trump’s first military operation as Commander in Chief and the White House insisted it was “a successful operation by all standards”.
It is currently unclear how al Rimi escaped or if he was even at the site at the time of the raid but he later released a video taunting Mr Trump as a “fool”.

Mr Obama had reportedly been told about the plan to kill al Rimi, who took over control of the Yemeni affiliate of the terror organisation in 2015, but held off approving it because his advisors had wanted to wait until a moonless night which would not have happened again till after he left office, the New York Times reported.

But Defence Secretary, General James "Mad Dog" Mattis, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, reportedly convinced Mr Trump to go ahead with the raid by suggesting Mr Obama would never have been so bold as to actually go through with it. "


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