The White House retreated Tuesday from its most challenging assertions about the operation to kill Osama bin Laden, acknowledging that the al Qaeda leader was neither equipped nor hiding behind a female human shield when U.S. commandos lethally shot him during a predawn raid.
The disclosures put the Obama administration on the defensive about whether it had overstated elements of earlier accounts for propaganda gain. At the same time, additional details surfaced Tuesday that portray a mission begun amid far greater political and operational uncertainty than had been revealed.CIA Director Leon Panetta, who supervised the operation, said in interviews that U.S. intelligence agencies never had photographs or other evidence that bin Laden was living at the compound in Pakistan that was attacked. Panetta told Time magazine that analysts were only 60 to 80 percent certain bin Laden would be found.
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