Obama campaign defends 'fair game' bin Laden ad

Washington, Apr 30 (ANI): US President Barack Obama's re-election campaign has defended a controversial web video that questioned whether Republican rival Mitt Romney would have approved the raid on Osama bin Laden's hide out in Abbottabad, calling the ad campaign 'fair game'.

The web video released Friday, hails Obama's role in the bin Laden raid, and highlights Romney's 2007 comment that it was "not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars" to find the mastermind of 9/11.

It clearly suggests bin Laden would probably still be alive if Romney had been the president.

Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs, the former White House press secretary, defended the ad, and said it was clear Romney wouldn't have green-lighted the mission, Fox News reports.

"Osama bin Laden no longer walks on this planet today because of that brave decision (by Obama) and the brave actions by the men and women in our military-and quite frankly Mitt Romney said it was a foolish thing to do a few years ago," Gibbs said in an interview with NBC.

"Maybe the comments he made a few years ago he admits are wrong, or he's flip-flopped on yet another issue," he added.

Meanwhile, Republicans have described the new web video as preposterous.

"I think most Americans will see it as a sign of a desperate campaign," Romney adviser Ed Gillespie said, speaking on the same program as Gibbs.

Gillespie said it was legitimate for Obama to say he's 'proud' of the bin Laden raid, with the one-year anniversary of that raid approaching this week, but objected to the implication that Romney would not have made the same decision, calling the move 'divisive.' (ANI)