U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, in an unusual reversal, said he advised President Barack Obama in May 2011 to go ahead with the raid that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
"I told him my opinion that I thought he should go, but follow his own instincts," Biden said at George Washington University on October 20.
"I never ... say what I think finally until I go up in the Oval [Office] with him alone."
Biden, whose comments came as he weighs whether to enter the 2016 presidential race, has previously said he advised Obama against approving the 2011 raid without taking further steps to verify that bin Laden was present at the Pakistan compound where he was eventually found.
Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner in the 2016 presidential race, who was Obama's secretary of state at the time, has highlighted her support for the raid.
Clinton in the Democratic debate last week took a veiled shot at Biden by emphasizing her involvement in Obama's decision to authorize the raid.