When the doorbell rang at the Osama Bin Laden compound, the security guard on duty that night failed to notice the assault rifle slung over the pizza deliveryman's shoulder. As he unbolted the front door to explain to the camouflaged pizza-man, " we didn't order a pizza", he noticed a flash of light out of the corner of his eye, then everything went dark.....for him.

The rest of the story will go down in history to be replayed in films, training programs and legend. There will probably be ballads written and parents are renaming their first born male children Barack in honor of our President.

Everyone will claim to be a part of the success of the operation. I notice many seem to be coming out of the woodwork to take credit for the action which brought the demise of Osama Bin Laden, now that it seems to be a total success.

Of course if it turned out to be a failure, knowing how politically motivated the key players are, I am sure everyone had a plan B ready just in case. A plausible deniability factor to distance themselves from the calamity....and blame.

Everyone to this day remembers Jimmy Carters failed attempt to rescue the American hostages in Iran. Jimmy Carter=Failed attempt, has a ring to it.

When Dwight Eisenhower ordered the Normandy invasion during WW II, he had already typed up a letter taking full responsibility for the failure of the operation if it had proved to be disastrous. Is there a similar letter in the upper echelons of power in the White house?

The age old axiom shines as we see everyone taking credit for the operation: "Failure is an orphan and success has many parents".

But lost in the back slapping and congratulations is that this operation started years ago when President Bush ordered a revamp of our intelligence systems and had the walls broken down between security agencies so they could share intelligence.

Under President Bush, the key intelligence was gathered that lead to the success of this operation. Using GITMO, enhanced interrogation techniques, warrant less wiretapping and not giving enemy combatants captured on foreign soil constitutional rights.

If you remember one of the first things President Obama did after he was elected was to order his Attorney General, Eric Holder, to investigate CIA interrogators who had worked within the law to garner the information that lead to the successful operation in Pakistan. He also ordered all enhanced interrogation techniques to cease.

If there is another 911 type of attack, will the same "parents" take responsibility for eliminating key intelligence gathering techniques?

Update 5/5/11:
Water boarding 'intelligence' led USA to Osama bin Laden : former CIA official

Update 5/21/11:
Mullah Omar reportedly killed in Pakistan
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=689038&publicationSubCategoryId=200