Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley couldn’t confirm President Trump’s descriptive account of how ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was ‘whimpering’ before he died.
‘I know the president had planned to talk down to unit and unit members, but I don’t know what the source of that was,’ Milley said at the Pentagon Monday. ‘But I assume it was talking directly to unit and unit members.’
Milley said he hadn’t ‘talked to unit members,’ and so wouldn’t have heard those details, but told reporters that visual content from the raid was going through the declassification process and in the ‘coming days’ journalists would be ‘provided some videos, photos, etc. of it.’
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said Monday that President Trump must have talked to ‘unit members’ in order to get details about how ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was ‘whimpering’ before he died.
President Donald Trump said he may release the footage of the raid that killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi amid questions about his description of it
President Donald Trump watching in the Situation Room as US Special Operations forces close in on ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
The site where a US military strike reportedly killed so-called Islamic State leader al-Baghdadi
Trump had already teased having the video of the raid released.
‘We’re thinking about it. We may. The question was, am I considering releasing video footage of the raid. And we may take certain parts of it and release it, yes,’ the president told reporters at Joint Base Andrews as he prepared to leave for Chicago, Monday morning.
No timeline has been provided for the release and White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley didn’t have one when asked about it by reporters later that day.
President Trump watched the special forces operation to kill Baghdadi via drone footage, instead of a body-worn camera, so did not see the moment the ISIS leader died, according to military and intelligence officials.
Trump announced the success of the raid in a press conference, saying that Baghdadi died ‘whimpering and crying and screaming’, and ‘like a dog and a coward’.
He described the video footage he watched as ‘something really amazing to see’ and that it was ‘as though you were watching a movie’. Helicopters carried US special forces to the compound of Baghdadi where he was hiding near Idlib in northwestern Syria.
Half way around the world, Trump watched the raid in real-time via a video link as troops blasted into the hideout and sent the most-wanted militant running the last steps of his life before detonating a suicide belt.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper (left) was asked the same question yesterday as Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Millery (right) was asked today – whether the top military leaders could confirm some of the details shared by President Trump
Surveillance footage on several video screens showing various angles of the overhead maneuvers were relayed via drone to multiple screens in the Situation Room at the White House.
However, military sources said the president would not have been able to see what was happening inside the compound or the moment Baghdadi fled to a dead-end tunnel with three of his children, according to the New York Times.
There was also no live audio of the daring raid, which was the culmination of years of intelligence-gathering and hastily put together once Washington got word that Baghdadi would be at a certain hideout near the village of Barisha.
In order to know this detail about Baghdadi’s final moments, Trump would have needed reports directly from the commandos who took part in the operation or received the information passed through the chain of command to the president, military sources claim.
US Special Operations forces have, in recent years, opted to move away from using helmet cams to relay real time footage because of the disorienting and sometimes violent nature of the images. There is also the fear that such footage encourages instant intervention from command centers, the New York Times reports.
Milley’s response Monday came after Defense Secretary Mark Esper was essentially asked the same question on Sunday.
He answered the same way.
‘I don’t have those details. The president probably had the opportunity to talk to the commanders on the ground,’ Esper said.
The commandos were wearing body cameras, but these did not broadcast in real time due to the nature of the operation.
This footage can be downloaded and reviewed after the operation finished, according to Pentagon officials.
A Defense Department source told the New York Times it was possible Trump spoke to either the Delta Force operators involved in the raid or their superiors.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, being interviewed by his group’s Al-Furqan media outlet when he reappeared in April
The compound was destroyed in a US helicopter raid while Baghdadi fled into a tunnel, then detonated an explosive belt, killing himself and three of his children
The operation came four days after Trump green lit the raid on Saturday, with the president cryptically tweeting, ‘Something very big has just happened!’.
Several other opportunities for the strike were aborted at the last minute with helicopters flying some 500 miles over ‘very very dangerous territory’.
National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, Vice President Mike Pence, Esper, Milley and Brig. General Marcus Evans, were also present as Trump watched the raid.
Baghdadi, the president confirmed Sunday, detonated his suicide vest, killing himself and three children, during an overnight targeted attack.
The president touted the operation and Baghdadi’s death as ‘bigger than bin Laden’.
Osama bin Laden, founder of Al-Qaeda and the terrorist leader behind the September 11 terrorist attacks, was killed in 2011 during a Navy SEALs operation during Barack Obama’s presidency.
Trump told a press conference, referencing Baghdadi’s creation of the so-called Islamic State in 2014: ‘This is the biggest there is.
‘This is the worst ever. Osama bin Laden was big, but Osama bin Laden became big with the World Trade Center. This is a man who built a whole, as he would like to call it, a country.’
The president also referred to Baghdadi and those who followed him as ‘losers’ and lauded that no U.S. personnel were lost during the raid, but did say that one ‘talented canine’ was injured.
Trump said on Sunday: ‘I got to watch much of it. No personnel were lost in the operation, while a large number of Baghdadi’s fighters and companions were killed with him.
‘He died after running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming all the way.’
Trump added that Baghdadi dragged three of his children with him: ‘They were led to certain death.’
He the added: ‘He reached the end of the tunnel as our dogs chased him down. He ignited his vest, killing himself and the three children.
His body was mutilated by the blast. The tunnel had caved in on it, in addition. But test results gave certain, immediate and totally positive identification.
It was him. The thug who tried so hard to intimidate others spent his last moments in utter fear, in total panic and dread, terrified of the American forces bearing down on him.’
The president then said, while claiming he’s been looking for Baghdadi ever since assuming office, that he’s the only one better at ‘using the internet’ than ISIS.