FORT WORTH, Texas: The Bush administration would have used the same strategy to kill Osama Bin Laden had those circumstances arisen years ago, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told The Associated Press in an interview Friday. Rumsfeld said President Barack Obama made the right decision in sending Navy SEALs to raid the Al-Qaeda leader's compound in Pakistan earlier this month. But he declined to say how much credit the Obama administration deserves. “The capabilities to do it were developed over time by previous administrations, and they benefit the country, and the intelligence had been gathered over a long period of time,” Rumsfeld said. “And it came to fruition in the Obama administration, to the credit of the intelligence community. ... I don't have a doubt in my mind but that President Bush, if he had information as to the location of Bin Laden, would have done exactly the same thing, and I thought the forces executed it brilliantly.” Rumsfeld, defense secretary under President Gerald R. Ford from 1975-77 and under President George W. Bush from 2001-06, spoke to the AP by telephone. On Sunday he will be in Texas for a book-signing tour of his memoir, “Known and Unknown,” with stops at Fort Hood in Killeen, Fort Bliss in El Paso and Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio through next week.
