Weaponized Keynesianism

A few years back Representative Barney Frank coined an apt phrase for many of his colleagues: weaponized Keynesians, defined as those who believe “that the government does not create jobs when it funds the building of bridges or important research or retrains workers, but when it builds airplanes that are never going to be used in combat, that is of course economic salvation.”

Right now the weaponized Keynesians are out in full force — which makes this a good time to see what’s really going on in debates over economic policy.

What’s bringing out the military big spenders is the approaching deadline for the so-called supercommittee to agree on a plan for deficit reduction. If no agreement is reached, this failure is supposed to trigger cuts in the defense budget.

Faced with this prospect, Republicans — who normally insist that the government can’t create jobs, and who have argued that lower, not higher, federal spending is the key to recovery — have rushed to oppose any cuts in military spending. Why? Because, they say, such cuts would destroy jobs.

Thus Representative Buck McKeon, Republican of California, once attacked the Obama stimulus plan because “more spending is not what California or this country needs.” But two weeks ago, writing in The Wall Street Journal, Mr. McKeon — now the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee — warned that the defense cuts that are scheduled to take place if the supercommittee fails to agree would eliminate jobs and raise the unemployment rate.

Oh, the hypocrisy! But what makes this particular form of hypocrisy so enduring?

First things first: Military spending does create jobs when the economy is depressed. Indeed, much of the evidence that Keynesian economics works comes from tracking the effects of past military buildups. Some liberals dislike this conclusion, but economics isn’t a morality play: spending on things you don’t like is still spending, and more spending would create more jobs.

But why would anyone prefer spending on destruction to spending on construction, prefer building weapons to building bridges?

John Maynard Keynes himself offered a partial answer 75 years ago, when he noted a curious “preference for wholly ‘wasteful’ forms of loan expenditure rather than for partly wasteful forms, which, because they are not wholly wasteful, tend to be judged on strict ‘business’ principles.” Indeed. Spend money on some useful goal, like the promotion of new energy sources, and people start screaming, “Solyndra! Waste!” Spend money on a weapons system we don’t need, and those voices are silent, because nobody expects F-22s to be a good business proposition.

To deal with this preference, Keynes whimsically suggested burying bottles full of cash in disused mines and letting the private sector dig them back up. In the same vein, I recently suggested that a fake threat of alien invasion, requiring vast anti-alien spending, might be just the thing to get the economy moving again.

But there are also darker motives behind weaponized Keynesianism.

For one thing, to admit that public spending on useful projects can create jobs is to admit that such spending can in fact do good, that sometimes government is the solution, not the problem. Fear that voters might reach the same conclusion is, I’d argue, the main reason the right has always seen Keynesian economics as a leftist doctrine, when it’s actually nothing of the sort. However, spending on useless or, even better, destructive projects doesn’t present conservatives with the same problem.

Beyond that, there’s a point made long ago by the Polish economist Michael Kalecki: to admit that the government can create jobs is to reduce the perceived importance of business confidence.

Appeals to confidence have always been a key debating point for opponents of taxes and regulation; Wall Street’s whining about President Obama is part of a long tradition in which wealthy businessmen and their flacks argue that any hint of populism on the part of politicians will upset people like them, and that this is bad for the economy. Once you concede that the government can act directly to create jobs, however, that whining loses much of its persuasive power — so Keynesian economics must be rejected, except in those cases where it’s being used to defend lucrative contracts.

So I welcome the sudden upsurge in weaponized Keynesianism, which is revealing the reality behind our political debates. At a fundamental level, the opponents of any serious job-creation program know perfectly well that such a program would probably work, for the same reason that defense cuts would raise unemployment. But they don’t want voters to know what they know, because that would hurt their larger agenda — keeping regulation and taxes on the wealthy at bay.

Occupy

DENVER (AP) - The simmering tension near the Colorado Capitol escalated dramatically Saturday with more than a dozen arrests, reports of skirmishes between police and protesters and authorities firing rounds of pellets filled with pepper spray at supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Officers in riot gear moved into a park late in the day where protesters were attempting to establish an encampment, hauling off demonstrators just hours after a standoff at the Capitol steps degenerated into a fight that ended in a cloud of Mace and pepper spray.

Denver police spokesman Matt Murray said 15 people were arrested in the evening confrontation, where authorities were moving to prevent protesters from setting up tents in the park, which are illegal. Officals say the demonstrators had been warned several times that the tents would not be allowed and those who attempted to stop police from dismantling the camp gear were arrested. Protesters have been staying in the park for weeks, but tents have repeatedly been removed.

Murray said that most of the protesters were peaceful but there was "just a die-hard group that didn't want to cooperate."

"We showed great restraint," he said. "We were calm. We went in and did what we had to do. There's a group of very committed people who believe in a cause, and then there are a few people who just want to cause trouble."

Earlier in the day about 2,000 protesters rallying against what they see as economic inequality and corporate greed marched downtown toward the Capitol, setting up the most intense moments of the Denver movement, which has lasted weeks.

A group of the marchers advanced toward the building and some tried to make their way up the steps. About eight officers scuffled with a group of protesters and police confirmed that they used Mace and fired pepper balls - hollow projectiles filled with the chemical irritant - to break up the crowd. Protesters told the paper at the time that they believed police used rubber bullets.

Murray said protesters kicked police and knocked one officer off his motorcycle. He said five protesters were arrested, including two for assault and one for disobedience.

Chantrell Smiley, 21, of Denver, said she has been protesting downtown for more than a week, sleeping on the ground in the park. She said she didn't see the officer get knocked from his motorcycle and didn't see any reason for the afternoon confrontation.

"It was just chaos. This wasn't necessary. My friend got hit with rubber bullets in the face. He was screaming and bleeding, then they Maced him. We're being peaceful. We don't want to be harmed. They came through and took everything down - our food, our blankets, everything's gone."

Mike Korzen, 25, told the Denver Post that he was among the group that police dispersed with rubber bullets and pepper spray and suggested that the police force was excessive.

"I was standing there with my hands behind my back," Korzen said, using a water bottle to rinse pepper spray from his eyes.

After nightfall about a dozen Denver police and Colorado state patrol cars remained in the area.

About 100 protesters milled about, most coughing and sneezing from the haze of pepper spray and Mace that still hovered in the air. Some laid out tarps on the ground, preparing to spend another night outside. Throughout the evening vehicles pulled up, dropping off blankets and food with cheering protesters.

Who Gets What, When and How

During Herman Cain’s tenure as the head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, at least two female employees complained to colleagues and senior association officials about inappropriate behavior by Cain, ultimately leaving their jobs at the trade group, multiple sources confirm to POLITICO.

The women complained of sexually suggestive behavior by Cain that made them angry and uncomfortable, the sources said, and they signed agreements with the restaurant group that gave them financial payouts to leave the association. The agreements also included language that bars the women from talking about their departures.

In a series of comments over the past 10 days, Cain and his campaign repeatedly declined to respond directly about whether he ever faced allegations of sexual harassment at the restaurant association. They have also declined to address questions about specific reporting confirming that there were financial settlements in two cases in which women leveled complaints.

POLITICO has confirmed the identities of the two female restaurant association employees who complained about Cain but, for privacy concerns, is not publishing their names.

Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon told POLITICO the candidate indicated to campaign officials that he was “vaguely familiar” with the charges and that the restaurant association’s general counsel had resolved the matter.

The latest statement came from Cain himself. In a tense sidewalk encounter Sunday morning outside the Washington bureau of CBS News — where the Republican contender had just completed an interview on “Face the Nation” — Cain evaded a series of questions about sexual harassment allegations.

Cain said he has “had thousands of people working for me” at different businesses over the years and could not comment “until I see some facts or some concrete evidence.” His campaign staff was given the name of one woman who complained last week, and it was repeated to Cain on Sunday. He responded, “I am not going to comment on that.”

He was then asked, “Have you ever been accused, sir, in your life of harassment by a woman?”

He breathed audibly, glared at the reporter and stayed silent for several seconds. After the question was repeated three times, he responded by asking the reporter, “Have you ever been accused of sexual harassment?”

Cain was president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association from late 1996 to mid-1999.

POLITICO learned of the allegations against him, and over the course of several weeks, has put together accounts of what happened by talking to a lengthy roster of former board members, current and past staff and others familiar with the workings of the trade group at the time Cain was there.

In one case, POLITICO has seen documentation describing the allegations and showing that the restaurant association formally resolved the matter. Both women received separation packages that were in the five-figure range.

On the details of Cain’s allegedly inappropriate behavior with the two women, POLITICO has a half-dozen sources shedding light on different aspects of the complaints.

The sources — which include the recollections of close associates and other documentation — describe episodes that left the women upset and offended. These incidents include conversations allegedly filled with innuendo or personal questions of a sexually suggestive nature, taking place at hotels during conferences, at other officially sanctioned restaurant association events and at the association’s offices. There were also descriptions of physical gestures that were not overtly sexual but that made women who experienced or witnessed them uncomfortable and that they regarded as improper in a professional relationship.

Peter Kilgore, who was the association’s general counsel in the 1990s, and remains in that position today, has declined to comment to POLITICO on whether any settlements existed, saying he cannot discuss personnel matters.

But one source closely familiar with Cain’s tenure in Washington confirmed that the claims related to allegations of sexual harassment – behavior that disturbed members of the board who became aware of it, as well as the source, who otherwise liked Cain.

“I happen to know there were sealed settlements reached in the plural. I think that anybody who thinks this was a one-time, one-person transgression would be mistaken,” this source said.

The first woman was identified to POLITICO by a former association board member and her identity was confirmed by two additional sources.

The former board member recalled learning of the woman’s departure at a 1999 association board meeting and trade expo in Chicago.

“She was offered a financial package to leave the association and she did,” said the former board member. “What I took offense at was that it was clear that rather than deal with the issue, there was an effort to hush it up. She was offered a way out to keep quiet.”

A second source with close ties to the restaurant association from that period said the woman revealed at the time that she had suffered what the source described as “an unwanted sexual advance” from Cain at a hotel where an event involving the group was taking place.

A third source said that the woman has indicated to her current employer that she received a compensation package from the association and has warned there that she may be the subject of an embarrassing story involving a presidential candidate.

The second woman’s identity was confirmed by a source familiar with the association.

On Oct. 20, POLITICO first approached Gordon, who serves as the campaign’s vice president for communications, about whether Cain had been the subject of complaints of sexual harassment.

After several days of not responding to the question, Gordon emailed on Oct. 24 that any dispute about Cain’s conduct at the restaurant association “was settled amicably among all parties many years ago.”

“These are old and tired allegations that never stood up to the facts,” Gordon said in an email response. “This was settled amicably among all parties many years ago, and dredging this up now is merely part of a smear campaign meant to discredit a true patriot who is shaking up the political status quo.”

Gordon added: “Since critics haven’t had much luck in attacking Mr. Cain’s ideas, they are trying to attack him personally.”

On Wednesday, the response shifted. Gordon telephoned to assert he was not using “settled” in a legal context but rather simply meant the matter was “resolved.”

In that interview, Gordon told POLITICO he had spoken to Cain about the allegations and said Cain was “vaguely familiar” with the situation.

“He was vaguely familiar with it and wanted me to get with the [National Restaurant Association] lawyer who worked the case, Peter Kilgore. He said, ‘Just get with Peter Kilgore at the NRA.’ He remembered there was something vaguely, some allegation, but he wasn’t familiar with it. Our lawyer called Peter Kilgore. Their policy is they don’t discuss personnel. That’s what our lawyer then told me.”

Added Gordon: “When you’re in a leadership position, sometimes people just try to take a shot at you.”

As to whether the association under Cain ever paid a monetary settlement to women who had leveled such accusations against him, Gordon referred the question to the restaurant trade group.

Kilgore told POLITICO in a statement: “Please understand that our corporate policy is not to discuss personnel matters (other than to confirm employment and dates of employment) with outside sources, including media. Thus, I must respectfully decline to comment on your questions or any allegations you may be looking into that concern current or former employees of the Association.”

After POLITICO published its reporting Sunday evening, the Cain campaign said in a statement that the “political trade press are now casting aspersions on his character and spreading rumors that never stood up to the facts” but did not deny the details of the report.

“Fearing the message of Herman Cain who is shaking up the political landscape in Washington, Inside the Beltway media have begun to launch unsubstantiated personal attacks on Cain,” the campaign said in a statement. “Sadly, we’ve seen this movie played out before – a prominent Conservative targeted by liberals simply because they disagree with his politics.”

The revelations come at a time when Cain is riding high in the polls, with a candidacy that relies heavily on Cain’s claims that his experience as a businessman and the former head of Godfather’s Pizza has prepared him to be president.

But the Republican presidential hopeful also has begun to face increasing scrutiny in the press over his management style, presiding over an unorthodox campaign that has seen the departures of several aides and struggled to take advantage of Cain’s sudden vault to the head of the pack.

Cain, who has been married to his wife Gloria for 43 years, did tell at least one campaign staffer this year about the possibility that claims of sexual harassment could surface, according to the aide. Cain, this person said, described a case in which he fired an employee in 1990s and the woman alleged sexual misconduct or harassment. Cain told the campaign staffer he had beaten the case and that the woman had paid for his legal fees. The aide had no further details.

Cain was head of the restaurant trade group after he left the job as CEO of Godfather’s Pizza. He has often referred to his experience running the pizza company but speaks less often about his tenure atop the association. The year before he took the helm, the association represented about 150,000 food service establishments, had roughly 115 employees and a government affairs budget of nearly $20 million. But it was not known as a top lobbying powerhouse.

Cain tried to change that, hiring more lobbyists and taking a much more public role in advocating for the industry than did his predecessor. Boasting of the shift in his book, Cain noted that during his tenure, the restaurant association made its first appearance on Fortune magazine’s list of Washington’s 25 most influential interest groups (it rose as high as 15th).

Information about the incidents was apparently closely held, even among association board members.

But one woman’s complaint apparently did make its way to at least some figures on the governing board when, at an association event, one board member got word that a female employee had complained about Cain’s advances, according to a source who was at the event.

The source said the board member asked the woman directly about the episode and was told that Cain had invited her up to his suite at a prior association event.

Ron Magruder, Denise Marie Fugo and Joseph Fassler, the chair, vice chair and immediate past chairman of the National Restaurant Association board of directors at the time of Cain’s departure, said they hadn’t heard about any complaints regarding Cain making unwanted advances.

“I have never heard that. It would be news to me,” said Fugo, who runs a Cleveland, Ohio, catering company, adding such behavior would be totally out of character for the Cain she knew. “He’s very gracious.”

Fassler, who helped bring Cain on board as CEO of the restaurant association, said that any inappropriate behavior was not brought to his attention and that he would be upset to learn it had gone on and he was not made aware of it.

“That’s a shock to me,” Fassler said. “As an officer during all of Herman’s years there as a paid executive… none of that stuff ever surfaced to me. Nobody ever called me, complained about this, nor did I ever hear that from Peter Kilgore, nor did I ever hear that from Herman Cain.”

Fassler – who ran a Phoenix food-service company and finished his term as chairman the month before Cain’s June 1999 departure but remained on the board’s executive committee – described Cain as treating men and women identically and asserted it was “not within his character” to make unwanted advances. “It’s not what I know of him,” Fassler said.

Much like Fassler, almost all board members remember Cain fondly and say he left on good terms.

Cain was “extremely professional” and “fair” to female staffers at the restaurant association, recalled Lee Ellen Hayes, who said she “worked fairly closely with” Cain in the late 1990s, when she was an executive at the National Restaurant Association Education Fund, a Chicago-based offshoot of the group.

Cain’s treatment of women was “the same as his treatment of men. Herman treated everyone great,” said Mary Ann Cricchio, who was elected to the board of the restaurant group in 1998. She said Cain left such a good impression on the organization that when he spoke at a group event in January of this year, as he was considering a presidential bid, “he had unanimous support in the room.”

Revelations about the settlements come as members of the association’s board planned to meet this month to talk about ways to use the organization’s clout to boost Cain’s campaign.

Ideas to be discussed included making a donation to Cain from the organization’s political action committee, which typically doesn’t contribute to presidential campaigns, and, more significantly, organizing a fundraiser for his campaign.

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Pakistani Military Chief Issues Strongest Threat Yet

Pakistan's military chief says he'll order Pakistani forces to fight any American troops attempting another raid on its soil like the mission earlier this week that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

In his first public reaction to Monday’s assault, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, the head of Pakistan’s powerful armed forces, demanded Washington withdraw many of the U.S. military personnel now stationed inside Pakistan and warned that any future raids into the country would prompt a far-reaching reevaluation of Islamabad’s ties with Washington.

It's an escalation of U.S.-Pakistani tensions that suggests the already troubled relationship between the erstwhile allies could be entering a dangerous new phase. Both governments traded public potshots over the American operation that killed bin Laden in his hideout—an enormous compound in an affluent suburb of Islamabad. The proximity of the mansion to Pakistan's equivalent of West Point has raised uncomfortable questions about what Pakistan knew regarding bin Laden and why he managed to remain undetected there for years.

But Kayani was having none of it. “Any similar action violating the sovereignty of Pakistan will warrant a review on the level of military/intelligence cooperation with the United States,” he said in a brief statement released by the Pakistani military press office.

Later at a press conference with Pakistani journalists, Kayani said he would order Pakistani forces to engage any U.S. troops who entered the country in pursuit of other wanted militants. The comments raised the grim possibility that American and Pakistani troops could one day find themselves engaging in open combat, something which seemed almost unthinkable even a few days ago.

Back in Washington, Democratic Rep. Howard Berman of California, the ranking member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, urged the Obama administration to reconsider its military assistance to Pakistan because of the discovery that bin Laden—the most wanted man in the world—spent the last five years living under the noses of thousands of Pakistani security personnel.

“I am writing to express my deep and ongoing concerns regarding the impact of U.S. security assistance to Pakistan—concerns that have been exacerbated by the discovery of Osama bin Laden’s lair in Abbottabad,” Berman wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “Certain elements of the Pakistani defense and intelligence establishments continue to provide direct and indirect support to groups that directly threaten the United States, Afghanistan, and Pakistan’s own stability … Pakistan’s continued resistance to cooperate with the United States in counterterrorism bespeaks an overall regression in the relationship.”

Berman’s comments were particularly striking because the lawmaker has long been a strong advocate of increasing American assistance to Pakistan. Berman—along with Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.—was one of the primary authors of a 2009 bill that will provide $7.5 billion in non-military aid to Pakistan by 2014.

The cross-Atlantic sniping highlights one of the most worrisome aftereffects of Monday’s dramatic raid by highly-trained Navy SEALs. The commandos killed bin Laden and recovered a wide array of computers, DVDs, hard drives, and other data storage devices, all without suffering a single American casualty.

But the raid, which was launched without any Pakistani knowledge or permission, has added new strains to Washington’s relationship with Islamabad. The United States wants Pakistan to step up its intelligence sharing about other wanted militants, especially bin Laden’s probable successor Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is thought to be hiding in the country’s lawless border regions, and to take stronger military action against the insurgent safe havens along Pakistan’s porous border with Afghanistan. Pakistan has rebuffed those requests in the past and shows no signs of changing its behavior now.

American patience, however, appears to be rapidly running out. The United States launched the Monday raid against bin Laden’s compound without tipping off anyone inside the Pakistani government because of fears that information about the planned covert assault would leak to bin Laden and allow him to escape the strike.

“There was very little support, if any, across the government for bringing the Pakistanis into the fold,” a senior U.S. official said Wednesday. “They had tipped off targets in the past.”

Privately, several high-ranking American officials said this week they expected Pakistan to take high-profile steps in the near future to demonstrate its commitment to the counter-terror fight and assuage Washington’s fury over the fact that bin Laden's apparently been hiding in plain sight just outside the Pakistani capital.

Zawahiri, al-Qaida’s longtime No. 2, is now the primary American target inside Pakistan, and U.S. officials are studying what one official described as evidence of “communication between al-Qaida leaders,” which was found inside the compound, some of it handwritten. American officials believe that Pakistan knows more about Zawahiri’s whereabouts than it has previously let on, and Islamabad’s decision about whether to share that intelligence with the United States will help determine whether tensions between the two countries continue to escalate or begin to abate.

For the moment, Pakistan appears to have chosen confrontation over cooperation. Kayani’s appeals to Pakistani patriotism and mistrust of the U.S. were clearly meant to obscure the growing questions about whether elements of Pakistan’s government, military, or intelligence services knew bin Laden was in their country and were at least tacitly sheltering him.

Kayani’s assertive approach has paid off in the past, literally. Successive generations of Pakistani leaders have managed to wring tens of billions of dollars of aid out of Washington by alternately promising to help fight terrorism and suggesting that such assistance could be compromised if Washington didn’t fully respect Pakistani sovereignty. The U.S. has provided Islamabad with roughly $20 billion in military and non-military aid since 2001, and Washington—using a similar carrot-and-stick approach—has successfully pressured Islamabad on occasion by threatening to cut that assistance.

But the discovery of bin Laden’s safe haven within Pakistani borders now threatens to change the rules of the game. Washington is embroiled in a difficult war in Afghanistan that was launched in direct response to the deadliest terror attack in its history. The United States spent a decade hunting the man responsible for the strike, only to find him living comfortably in a modern home located close to the capitol of one of its nominal allies. The U.S.-Pakistani relationship is certain to be reevaluated, but it’s likely to be a furious Washington, not an aggrieved Islamabad, which pushes for the most far-reaching changes.

Pakistani Government Warns America

ISLAMABAD (AP) - Pakistan warned America Thursday of "disastrous consequences" if it carries out any more unauthorized raids against suspected terrorists like the one that killed Osama bin Laden.

However, the government in Islamabad stopped short of labeling Monday's helicopter raid on bin Laden's compound not far from the capital Islamabad as an illegal operation and insisted relations between Washington and Islamabad remain on course.

The army and the government have come under criticism domestically for allowing the country's sovereignty to be violated. Some critics have expressed doubts about government claims that it was not aware of the raid until after it was over.

Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir's remarks seemed to be aimed chiefly at addressing that criticism.

"The Pakistan security forces are neither incompetent nor negligent about their sacred duty to protect Pakistan," he told reporters. "There shall not be any doubt that any repetition of such an act will have disastrous consequences," he said.

Bashir repeated Pakistani claims that it did not know anything about the raid until it was too late to stop it. He said the army scrambled two F-16 fighter jets when it was aware that foreign helicopters were hovering over the city of Abbottabad, but they apparently did not get to the choppers on time.

American officials have said they didn't inform Pakistan in advance, fearing bin Laden could be tipped off.

Asked whether it was illegal, Bashir said only "that is for historians to judge."

The fact that bin Laden was hiding in a large house close to an army academy in a garrison town two hours drive from the capital has led to international allegations that sections of Pakistan's security forces may have been harboring bin Laden.

Pakistan has firmly denied those charges, but failed to explain how it did not know. Bashir said there were no plans for an investigation.

Some U.S. lawmakers have called for the Obama administration to stop giving aid to Pakistan. But the president and other top American officials have appeared more cautious, realizing that downgrading or severing ties with the country would be risky given the important role it will likely play in negotiating an end to the Afghan War.

Bashir said perceptions that Pakistan's ties with Islamabad were at rock bottom were untrue.

"We acknowledge the United States is an important friend," he said. "Basically Pakistan and U.S. relations are moving in the right direction."

US Forces Kill Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed thousands of Americans, was slain Sunday in his luxury hideout in Pakistan in a firefight with U.S. forces, ending a manhunt that spanned a frustrating decade.

"Justice has been done," President Barack Obama declared late Sunday as crowds formed outside the White House to celebrate. Many sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "We Are the Champions."

Hundreds more waved American flags at ground zero in New York — where the twin towers that once stood as symbols of American economic power were brought down by bin Laden's hijackers 10 years ago.

Bin Laden, 54, was killed after a gunbattle with Navy SEALs and CIA paramilitary forces at a compound in the city of Abbottabad. He was shot in the left eye, NBC News' Savannah Guthrie reported citing an unnamed U.S. official.

In a background briefing with journalists, U.S. officials suggested that Bin Laden opened fire on the American forces before he was killed.

DNA Tests

The special operations forces were on the ground for less than 40 minutes and the operation was watched in real-time by CIA director Leon Panetta and other intelligence officials in a conference room at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., an official said on condition of anonymity.

The team returned to Afghanistan with bin Laden's body, U.S. officials said. NBC News reported that bin Laden was later buried at sea.

Islamic tradition calls for a body to be buried within 24 hours, but finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world's most wanted terrorist would have been difficult, a senior administration official said.

Two Obama administration officials told the Associated Press Monday that DNA evidence shows the body was bin Laden's, with 99.9 percent confidence.

Other U.S. officials said one of bin Laden's sons and two of his most trusted couriers also were killed, as was an unidentified woman who was used as a human shield.

'A kill operation'

Al Arabiya TV reported that two of bin Laden's wives and four of his children were also captured during the operation.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a senior U.S. security official told Reuters that Navy SEALs dropped by helicopter to the compound were under orders to not capture bin Laden.

"This was a kill operation," the official said.

Intelligence officials weren't certain that bin Laden would be at the site as there was "no smoking gun that put him there," NBC News reported. But Bin Laden was indeed holed up in a two-story house 100 yards from a Pakistani military academy when four helicopters carrying U.S. forces swooped in .

Bin Laden's guards opened fire on the commandos and his final hiding place was left in flames, witnesses said.

One of the choppers "inexplicably" stopped working during the operation and landed, sources told NBC News. The chopper was later destroyed by the U.S. team and the raid went forward.

U.S. officials said no Americans were hurt in the operation.

Abbottabad is home to three Pakistan army regiments and thousands of military personnel and is dotted with military buildings. BBC News described the army site as the country's equivalent to West Point.

The discovery that bin Laden was living in an army town in Pakistan raises pointed questions about how he managed to evade capture and even whether Pakistan's military and intelligence leadership knew of his whereabouts and sheltered him.

The news of bin Laden's death immediately raised concerns that reprisal attacks from al-Qaida and other Islamist extremist groups could follow soon.

"In the wake of this operation, there may be a heightened threat to the U.S. homeland," a U.S. official said. "The U.S. is taking every possible precaution. The State Department has sent advisories to embassies worldwide and has issued a travel ban for Pakistan."

Security ramped up in U.S.

Police in New York, site of the deadliest attack on Sept. 11, said they had already begun to "ramp up" security on their own.

Other local law enforcement agencies around the U.S. are adding extra security measures out of "an abundance of caution," according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The agency said the extra police were not a response to a specific threat and facilities would operate normally.

In Los Angeles, police said they were stepping up intelligence monitoring and in Philadelphia, a lieutenant said police were checking mosques and synagogues every hour.

'Momentous achievement'

Charles Wolf of New York, whose wife, Katherine, died on Sept, 11, 2001, rejoiced at the news, which he called "wonderful."

"I am really glad that man's evil is off this earth forever," Wolf said. "I am just very glad that they got him."

Former President George W. Bush said in a statement that he had personally been informed by Obama of the death of the terrorist leader whose attacks forever defined his eight years in office.

"This momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001," the former president said.

"The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done."

Obama echoed his predecessor, declaring that "the death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation's struggle to defeat al-Qaida."

But he stressed that the effort against the organization continues. Al-Qaida remains in existence as an organization, presumably under the leadership of Ayman al-Zawahiri, 59, an Egyptian physician who is widely believed to have been bin Laden's No. 2.

"We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad," Obama said, while emphasizing that "the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday the killing of bin Laden is not the end of the war on terrorism and warned the network's members that the U.S. would be relentless in its pursuit of them.

Turning to deliver a direct message to bin Laden's followers, she vowed: "You cannot wait us out. You cannot defeat us but you can make the choice to abandon al-Qaida and participate in a peaceful political process."

'Affluent suburb'

Officials had long believed that bin Laden was hiding a mountainous region along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. In August, U.S. intelligence officials got a tip on his whereabouts, which led to the operation that culminated Sunday, Obama said.

By mid-February, information developed that made U.S. officials confident that the information was sound.

In mid-March, Obama headed five National Security Council meetings on the subject. Friday morning, he gave the final order to carry out the attack on a compound in what was described as an "affluent suburb" of Islamabad.

"The bottom line of our collection and analysis was that we had high confidence that the compound held a high-value terrorist target," a senior official said, with a "strong probability" that it was bin Laden.

"It is also noteworthy that the property is valued at approximately $1 million but has no telephone or Internet service connected to it," an administration official added.

Bin Laden's compound was huge and "extraordinarily unique," about eight times larger than other homes in the area, U.S. officials said.

Few windows of the three-story home faced the outside of the compound, and other intense security measures included 12- to 18-foot outer walls topped with barbed wire and internal walls that sectioned off different parts of the compound, officials said.

They said the compound was isolated by 12-foot walls, with access restricted by two security gates. Residents in the compound burned their trash, rather than leaving it for collection as did their neighbors, officials said.

The sound of at least two explosions rocked Abbottabad as the fighting raged.

"After midnight, a large number of commandos encircled the compound. Three helicopters were hovering overhead. All of a sudden there was firing toward the helicopters from the ground," said Nasir Khan, a resident of the town.

"There was intense firing and then I saw one of the helicopters crash," said Khan, who had watched the dramatic scene unfold from his rooftop.

Resident Sahibzada Salahuddin said he was asleep when explosions woke him.

"I was sleeping when all of a sudden there was a blast. It was followed by two more small blasts ... I opened the door and saw the entire compound was on fire," he said.

The role of Pakistan, with which Washington has had a difficult relationship for years, remained unclear. A senior Pakistani intelligence official told NBC News that Pakistani special forces took part in the operation, but senior U.S. and Pakistani officials said Pakistan was not informed of the attack in advance.

Pakistan's first official statement about the operation Monday said the death of bin Laden showed the resolve of Pakistan and the world to battle terrorism, and that it was "a major setback to terrorist organizations around the world."

"This operation was conducted by the U.S. forces in accordance with declared U.S. policy that Osama bin Laden will be eliminated in a direct action by the U.S. forces, wherever found in the world," the statement from Pakistan's foreign ministry statement said.

Critics have long accused elements of Pakistan's security establishment of protecting bin Laden, though Islamabad has always denied this.

Earlier, a senior adviser to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari told NBC News that the politician was expected to make an "extremely positive" statement later Monday because bin Laden was "an enemy of the Pakistani people."

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, meanwhile, argued that the strike proved the real fight against terrorists was outside his country's borders.

"For years we have said that the fight against terrorism is not in Afghan villages and houses," Karzai said. "It is in safe havens, and today that was shown to be true."

He offered his appreciation to international and Afghan forces who have lost their lives in the nearly 10-year war in Afghanistan and expressed hope that bin Laden's death could mean the end of terrorism. But he said now is the time to stop assaults that endanger or harass Afghan civilians.

Karzai pledged, however, that Afghanistan stands ready to do its part to help fight terrorists and extremists.

"We are with you and we are your allies," he said, noting that many Afghans had died because of bin Laden's terror network.

'I'm completely numb'

Reaction to the news of bin Laden's death was swift.

Bonnie McEneaney, 57, whose husband, Eamon, died in the 9/11 attacks, said the death of bin Laden was "long overdue."

"It doesn't bring back all the wonderful people who were killed 10 years ago," McEneaney told msnbc.com by phone from her home in New Canaan, Conn.

"I'm completely numb. I'm stunned," she said.

"The first thought I had in my mind was that it didn't bring my son back," Jack Lynch, who lost his son, New York City firefighter Michael Francis Lynch, on Sept. 11, 2001, told msnbc.com.

"You cut the head off a snake, you'd think it would kill the snake. But someone will take his place," Lynch said. "But people like him still exist. The fact that he's gone is not going to stop terrorism."

Lynch, 75, is a retired transit worker. His family's charity, the Michael Lynch Memorial Foundation, has made grants to send dozens of students to college. He said he would not celebrate bin Laden's death.

"I understand that bin Laden was an evil person. He may have believed in what he was doing. I'm not going to judge him," Lynch said. "I'm sure some people will look at this and they'll be gratified that he's dead, but me personally, I'm going to leave his fate in God's hands."

U.S. officials who have been entrenched in the battle against al-Qaida for years were more jubilant.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Obama's opponent in the 2008 election, said he was "overjoyed that we finally got the world's top terrorist."

"The world is a better and more just place now that Osama bin Laden is no longer in it," McCain said in a statement. "I hope the families of the victims of the September 11 attacks will sleep easier tonight and every night hence knowing that justice has been done."