Navy Seal commander assailed for excessive media attention during Osama raid

Washington, Feb.8 (ANI): A retired general has assailed the commander of the Navy Seal raid that killed Osama bin Laden for drawing too much media attention to operations that he argued should have been kept under wraps.

Retired Lt. Gen. James Vaught confronted Special Operations Commander Admiral Bill McRaven, as to why the recent raids by the Navy Seals, such as the one to kill Osama bin Laden or to rescue U.S. hostage Jessica Buchanan, were all over the media.

"Since the time when your wonderful team went and drug bin Laden out and got rid of him, and more recently when you went down and rescued the group in Somalia, or wherever the hell they were, they've been splashing all of this all over the media. I flat don't understand that," ABC News quoted Lt. Gen. Vaught, 85, as saying.

He further revealed that when his special operators extracted former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from a tunnel deep inside the country, they just did their job and faded away and kept their mouths shut.

"Now I'm going to tell you, one of these days, if you keep publishing how you do this, the other guy's going to be there ready for you, and you're going to fly in and he's going to shoot down every damn helicopter and kill every one of your SEALs," Lt. Gen. Vaught said.

"Mark my words. Get the hell out of the media," he concluded, as laughter broke out at a meeting of the National Defense Industrial Association in Washington, D.C.

Admiral McRaven responded by saying: "The fact of the matter is, there have always been portrayals of SOF [Special Operations Forces] out in the mainstream media. We are in an environment today where we can't get away from it."

"It is not something that we actively pursue, as I think a number of the journalists here in the audience will confirm. But the fact of the matter is, with the social media being what it is today, with the press and the 24-hour news cycle, it's very difficult to get away from it," he added.

He added that it was difficult to avoid media coverage in today's 24-hour news cycle and that it could actually help Navy Seals do their job better. (ANI)