the islamic state. the syrian-iraq territory they claimed as their own allows them to plot, plan and train. we know already the communications going back and forth. we don t have it all, but we know there was communication. it was not as if a cell in paris did this on their own. that s not how this works. again, like with al-qaeda, the reason we went to tora-bora is to keep them on their back foot. there is no happy coincidence we haven t had an attack on our turf since 9/11, like a paris attack. it is a lot of work and it is keeping them guessing and keeping them going from cave to cave. if we don t do that with isis we will talk about attacks like this and likely at some point because you can t stop everything, it will be here in the u.s. that s when the white house will put boots on the ground. jedediah, isn t that what happened in france? immediately we saw french airstrikes. 20. 20 airstrikes. we obviously know there are
we shove down his throat? and it s a valid point. and i just think one of the more pervasisuasive arguments i have heard, people look at military exercises and say we are going at this in an antiquated way. who says we need 70,000 troops in the ground in afghanistan to prevent al qaeda from coming back? how many troops did it take to get osama in the end? a bunch of navy s.e.a.l.s. and it s funny, because and by the way, you talk to guys in the agency. yeah. they say al qaeda is terrorized. they are not terrorized by american troops walking around with big targets. they are terrorized by that, the stuff that happens in the paper. well, they are terrorized the taliban is terrorized and al qaeda i mean, al qaeda is terrorized by drones. they cannot even walk from cave to cave now without looking up in the sky without thinking they are about to die.
work. thank you so much. facebook.com/carolcnn if you d like to continue the conversation. let s continue the cnn newsroom with randi kaye. hello, it s 1:00. two short days before the make or break south carolina primary. one gop hopeful is out. governor rick perry who dominated the field so briefly last summer called it a race. good morning, i have come to the conclusion that there is no more viable path for me in this campaign. therefore, today i m suspending my campaign and endorsing newt gingrich for president of the united states. our latest polls shows gingrich gaining on romney and perry stuck in fifth with single digits. santorum is running third but today he s officially the winner of the iowa caucuses. 16 days ago, you ll recall romney was on top with eight votes but the final results show santorum actually won by a total of 34 votes. it s basically a toss-up because eight votes are still missing. four republican candidates will meet tonight and wolf blitz
the ceo says documents discovered in the raid shows bin laden played a strong role in al qaeda, up to the end. michael sheehan is a terrorism analyst for nbc news and joins me now. give me a gut check on this. how do you come down on this? what is your read? is no question that the u.s. government, the evidence is all pointing in that direction. it is surprising that a lot of people thought bin laden may have had a lesser role in the aspects of al qaeda. that s been the conventional wisdom. that seems to be changing rapidly now. one thing i m surprised to hear about, you remember at the outset of the hunt for osama bin laden, he was a man who was getting dialysis for kidney failure, and we all had to contemplate how he would go from cave to cave carrying a dialysis machine and thought that improbable. there was nothing found according to reports thus far that indicated any sort of kidney problem. what does that say about intelligence and the reality? i think the kidney issue had
can you hear me, wolf? following on what john said about a u.s. military asset being involved, i m now being told by a u.s. official, telling us that osama bin laden was killed by a u.s. military asset, but specifically new information in a mansion outside islamabad, pakistan, along with other family members. so other members of bin laden s family were with him in this mansion outside islamabad when he was killed. significant, of course, because we ve suspected for years there s been intelligence suggesting that bin laden was moving from cave to cave, was in hiding. this suggests perhaps he may have been hiding, obviously, but he was somewhere more out in the open than in a cave somewhere, number one. number two, following on what you were talking about, the threats, i m told by a senior republican official that early this morning military bases around the world, u.s. military bases, were told to go to a much higher threat level because of a viable threat. obviously, once the u.s. knew