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‘We’re thinking about it’: US may release Baghdadi raid video
As more details will emerge of the raid, Trump, currently mired in an impeachment inquiry, would expect a bump in approval ratings, from the current low of 41% in the RealClearPolitics average of polls, as did President Barack Obama after the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011.
US President Donald Trump said Monday he may order the release of parts of the video of the raid that resulted in the killing of Islamic State’s Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, which his 2020 re-election campaign is touting as a personal achievement, telling supporters the president is “keeping America safe”.
The president also spoke about the killing at a Chicago event saying al-Baghdadi is “dead as a doornail”, and attacked President Barack Obama, on whose watch the Islamic State grew into a so-called caliphate with areas capture from Iraq and Syria: “He should have been killed years ago, another president should have gotten him.”
It wasn’t clear how much of the video would be released of the two-hour raid by America’s elite Delta Force operatives. President Trump, who watched the operation live in the situation room at the White House, said it was like “watching a movie”. He had gone on to share some vivid details such as al-Baghdadi being chased by military dogs, “dragging” three children with him into one of the network of tunnels in the compound, and “whimpering and crying”.
Also Watch l ‘He died like a dog, coward:’ Donald Trump on Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi killing
He had refused to say how the video was shot, but news-reports since have suggested it was recorded from an overhead drone, and that it may not bear out the details discussed by President Trump, who repeated some of it at the Chicago meet, that al-Baghdadi “didn’t die bravely”.
Asked Monday if he will consider releasing the video of the raid, he said, “We’re thinking about it. We may … And we may take certain parts of it and release it, yes.”
As more details will emerge of the raid, the American president, who is currently mired in an impeachment inquiry, would expect a bump in approval ratings, from the current low of 41% in the RealClearPolitics average of polls, as did President Barack Obama after the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011. But the question he might also be asking himself is whether it will be just as short-lived. Obama’s 7-point bump was gone in two months, and he was back at pre-bin Laden ratings.
Will Trump’s last, and until November of 2020? Just hours after the announcement, Trump was loudly booed when he was introduced during a baseball championship game at a stadium in Democratic-leaning Washington DC, with a section of the crowd also breaking into a chant of “Lock him up”
Nothing will stop him and his allies, from trying though. Trump started right away after the announcement with a 40-minute long news briefing, in which he portrayed the killing as the result of his unwavering focus on the hunt for al-Baghdadi from the day he took office.
On Sunday, his campaign followed up the announcement with a text to supporters: “President Trump has brought the #1 terrorist to justice — he’s KEEPING AMERICA SAFE”.
And allies, such as Republican senator Lindsey Graham, who had been openly critical of Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw US troops from Syria, fell in line. “What President Trump did last night was a hard call,” he wrote on twitter. “We owe President @realDonaldTrump a great deal of credit for ordering the raid to kill the leader of ISIS.”
