Panetta Talks Bin Laden Raid, Washington Culture

Former Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta discussed his relationship with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama along with critical moments in his more than 40-year career in public service at the Kennedy School on Thursday.

Panetta, who was unanimously confirmed as Secretary of Defense by the Senate in 2011, previously served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Obama, Director of the Office of Management and Budget and later Chief of Staff under Clinton, and as a Democratic Congressman representing what was then California’s 16th congressional district.

As CIA Director, Panetta oversaw the SEAL Team Six raid on Osama bin Laden’s safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a mission now considered one of the major achievements of the Obama administration. At the event Thursday, Panetta recounted how the operation came about, with the tracking of one of bin Laden’s couriers to a suspiciously large, walled compound in which a man was seen pacing about, as if a prisoner.

“I said...to my people, ‘We need to get an ID on this person — you know, put a telescope on a mountain, give me some cameras on a wall, do something,’” Panetta said. “And they said, ‘You know, it’s very tough, Mr. Director, the walls are there, we can’t get a good angle, it’s dangerous.’”

“I said, ‘You know what, I’ve seen movies where the CIA can do this!’” Panetta added, jokingly.

When asked to compare Clinton and Obama, Panetta said that Clinton was better at reaching out to the American people and briefing them about his vision for the country from the bully pulpit of the Oval Office.

Perhaps even more importantly, Panetta said that Clinton enjoyed the internal politics of presidency much more than Obama, such as listening to and negotiating with different people and viewpoints.

“President Obama doesn’t like that process, really doesn’t like the process of engaging with the political types on the Hill,” Panetta said. “I think his approach is to present something that he believes is logical and that is good policy, and that others ought to embrace that. Unfortunately, logic doesn’t work in Washington.”

Panetta also criticized Obama’s decision to back away from the “red line” he set in Syria, where Obama warned that there would be “enormous consequences” should the Assad regime use chemical weapons.

Reflecting on the budget sequestration in 2013 that slashed defense spending across the board, Panetta said political authorities on Capitol Hill today govern less by leadership and more by emergency.

“Today what’s happening in Washington is that policy is being driven by crisis,” Panetta said. “You’ve got to have a crisis, you’ve got to be at the edge of the cliff—the government’s going to shut down, the debt limit is not going to be raised, all hell is going to break loose.”

And as for any possible future work in Washington—perhaps even as Secretary of State—the longtime public servant simply remarked that he was happy to now be living 3,000 miles away from Washington.

“We have a walnut farm that my father planted back in California, and I enjoy working with a different set of nuts,” he joked.