Trump Effort To Pin Botched Yemen Raid On Barack Obama Falters

President Donald Trump’s first overseas operation as commander in chief, a botched raid that led to the death of an American serviceman and significant civilian casualties, was never approved by former President Barack Obama before he left office, two top former national security officials said on Thursday.

The comments from Colin Kahl, the national security adviser to former Vice President Joe Biden, and Ned Price, a former White House spokesman, came after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer tried to deflect blame by saying Obama’s team had approved the plan.

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Bill Roggio, the editor of the Long War Journal at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the al Qaeda fight will likely demand at least some of Trump’s attention in the form of raids, drone strikes and intelligence-gathering given the thousands of fighters the group has likely rallied there.

“I don’t see them changing things all that radically,” Roggio said, though he suggested that Trump could push the Saudis to provide more locally sourced intelligence on the militants. The new president does seem interested in using Obama’s toolkit of quasi-surgical assaults rather than overwhelming force for now, Ward noted.

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