Obama 'cancelled missions to kill bin Laden THREE TIMES after getting cold feet - until Hillary Clinton stepped in', claims explosive new book

Barack Obama cancelled three operations to kill Osama bin Laden before finally going ahead with the mission at the insistence of Hillary Clinton, according to a new book.

The explosive allegation is contained in Leading from Behind: The Reluctant Commander-in-Chief, an expose by journalist Rich Miniter published in August 2012 by Regnery Publishing. Miniter argues that the White House repeatedly got cold feet: according to the book, planned operations against the Abbottabad compound were scrapped in January, February, and March 2011 before the successful Navy SEAL raid of May 2, 2011.

The book further claims that senior adviser Valerie Jarrett urged the President not to authorize the raid, warning of political fallout if it failed — and that it was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, along with CIA Director Leon Panetta, who pushed hardest for going ahead.

The White House forcefully denied the claims. National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor dismissed the book as relying on anonymous sources and second-hand accounts, and the administration pointed to Obama's own detailed public account of the decision-making process.

The book landed in the middle of the 2012 presidential campaign, where the bin Laden raid had become a centerpiece of Obama's national-security credentials — and where Republican critics were questioning how much credit the President deserved. Like most campaign-season exposes, it was read as much for its timing as for its sourcing.