During the January 5 ABC News-Facebook Democratic presidential debate, moderator Charlie Gibson referred to Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) August 1, 2007, foreign policy speech -- in which Obama said that, as president, he would take action against "high-value terrorist targets" in Pakistan -- and asked Obama, "You stand by that?" Obama answered: "I absolutely do stand by it" and went on to say, "[B]ack in August, I said we should ... press them [the Pakistani government] to do more to take on Al Qaeda in their territory.
What I said was, if they could not or would not do so, and we had actionable intelligence, then I would strike." Gibson replied, "[W]hat you just outlined is essentially the Bush doctrine: We can attack if we want to, no matter the sovereignty of the Pakistanis." But as Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented, Bush and administration officials have taken contradictory positions on the question of whether the U.S. would act on actionable intelligence against Al Qaeda in Pakistan regardless of the sovereignty of Pakistan. Indeed, within a span of five days Bush said both that he would and would not go after Al Qaeda in Pakistan without the permission of the Pakistani government. Gibson's assertion of a "Bush doctrine" ignores these contradictions.
On September 20, 2006, Bush said to CNN host Wolf Blitzer that he would "[a]bsolutely" order U.S. troops into sovereign Pakistani territory "to bring [bin Laden] to justice." Bush reaffirmed that position on November 28, 2007, during another interview with Bush. Blitzer asked: "[A] year ago September ... you told me that 'absolutely' -- that was your word -- you would authorize U.S. troops to go into Pakistan if you had actionable intelligence on Osama bin Laden's whereabouts or other top-ranking Al Qaeda members. Is that still your position?" When Bush replied, "Yeah," Blitzer asked, "Hasn't changed?" Bush responded: "No, hasn't changed."
On the other hand, during a September 15, 2006, press conference -- five days before his 2006 interview with Blitzer -- Bush ruled out "sending special forces to Pakistan to hunt down [Osama] bin Laden" in part because "Pakistan is a sovereign nation." Additionally, on August 1, 2007, then-White House press secretary Tony Snow said: "[O]ur approach to Pakistan is one that not only respects the sovereignty of Pakistan as a sovereign government, but is also designed to work in a way where we are working in cooperation with the local government," as Media Matters documented......
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