A retired Army officer says the bin Laden documents are meant to distract the public from ISIS
(Fox News) Fox News covering the bin Laden document release.
Retired Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters thinks the big release of Osama bin Laden's documents is part of a US government effort to distract the public.
Peters, a frequent White House critic and Fox News contributor, told the television network on Tuesday that the release was designed to pull attention away from the jihadist Islamic State group's (also known as ISIS) recent capture of Ramadi, Iraq.
"What I see is an attempt by the administration to divert our attention from the fall of Ramadi," Peters said in the Fox interview. "Do you think it's an accident that these documents are suddenly dumped on us when the administration is horribly embarrassed by having claimed the Islamic State was on the defensive?"
Earlier in the day, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a large amount of documents captured from bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, which was famously raided by US special forces in 2011. The wide range of materials included everything from video game and technical manuals to English-language foreign policy books.
US officials suggested that the timing of the release was due to "a rigorous interagency review ... and the 2014 Intelligence Authorization Act, which required the ODNI to conduct a review of the documents for release."
But Peters argued that President Barack Obama's administration was simply trying to highlight its clearest foreign policy victory — the killing of bin Laden, the infamous Al Qaeda leader — amid gains made by the Islamic State.
"They're reverting to their one foreign policy win in six and a half years. So I find it very cynical," he said.
Watch Peters' Fox interview below:
More From Business Insider
