(WTVR) - A web video featuring former Navy SEALs accuses President Barack Obama of taking too much credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden and allowing classified information about the raid to become public.
The organization behind the ad, the Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund, has posted the 22-minute web video on its website. A spokeswoman says the group has raised about $1 million toward an advertising campaign in some key swing states, including Virginia.
Over a picture of Obama, the video's narrator says that the group's mission is to stop politicians from using sensitive intelligence about the bin Laden raid and other clandestine programs for political benefit.
In a series of interviews, former military and intelligence officers accuse Obama of seeking political gain by disclosing successful secret operations.
Members of the organization say the ad campaign pays no heed to political affiliation, and the organization describes itself as nonpartisan and says its focus is on protecting intelligence agents and special operations officers, not on politics.
But it shares an office with two Republican political consulting firms in Alexandria, Virginia. Its spokesman Chad Kolton worked for the Bush administration as a spokesman for the Director of National Intelligence.
As to who is funding the attack, which was first reported by Reuters, a spokeswoman for the organization would not disclose its donors.
Darrell West of the Brookings Institution says it is too soon to say whether this campaign could become as successful as the 2004 "Swift Boat" advertising campaign, which mounted a barrage of negative attacks on John Kerry's standing as a Vietnam war hero.
In recent campaign speeches, Obama has cited the killing of bin Laden as one of the campaign pledges he has fulfilled.
The White House has denied leaking secret information about clandestine operations, and two federal prosecutors have been assigned to investigate recent leaks about the Stuxnet virus and drone strike operations.
Source: CNN
