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Killing Bin Laden: The President's Story, Part 2

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    Last Sunday, as the final preparations
    for the raid were under way.
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    President Obama continued
    with his charade of business as usual.
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    Most people in the White House,
    including some of his closest aides
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    had no idea what was about to happen.
    To break the tension
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    and clear his head
    he played some golf in the morning.
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    Waiting for the sun to go down
    in Pakistan,
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    then he returned to the White House
    for the most critical,
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    forty minutes of his presidency.
    In mid afternoon he gathered
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    the architects of the mission
    in a windowless room,
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    in the White House basement
    to watch it all unfold.
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    - The story will continue in a moment.
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    - I want to go to the situation room.
    - Yep.
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    - What was the mood?
    - Tense.
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    - People talking?
    - Yeah but doing a lot of listening as well
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    cause we were able to monitor
    the situation in real time
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    getting reports back for Bill McRaven.
    The head of our special forces operations
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    as well as Leon Panetta.
    There were big chunks of time
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    in which all we were doing
    was just waiting,
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    and it was the longest forty minutes
    of my life with the possible exception
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    of when Sasha got meningitis
    when she was three months old,
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    and I was waiting for the doctor
    to tell me she was all right.
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    It was a very tense situation.
    - Were you nervous?
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    - Yes.
    - What could you see?
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    - We were monitoring the situation,
    and we knew as events unfolded
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    what was happening in,
    in and around the compound
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    we could not get information
    clearly about what was happening
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    inside the compound.
    - Right, and that went on
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    for a long time?
    Could you hear gun fire?
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    - We had a sense of when gun fire
    and explosions took place.
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    - Flashes?
    - Yeah and we also knew
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    when one of the helicopters went down
    in a way that wasn't according to plan,
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    and as you might imagine
    that made us more tense.
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    - So it got off to a bad start?
    - Well it did not go exactly
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    according to plan,
    but this is exactly where all the work
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    that had been done anticipating what
    might go wrong made a huge difference.
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    - There was a back up plan?
    - There was a back up plan.
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    - You had to blow up some walls?
    - We had to blow up some walls.
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    - Where was the first indication
    that you had found the right place
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    that Bin Laden was in there?
    - There was a point before folks had left,
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    before we had gotten everybody
    back on the helicopter
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    and were flying back to base
    where they said,
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    "Geronimo is, has been killed."
    and Geronimo was the code name
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    for Bin Laden
    and now obviously at that point
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    there guys were operating in the dark
    with all kinds of stuff going on.
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    So everybody was cautious,
    but at that point, cautiously optimistic.
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    - What was your reaction when
    you heard those words?
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    - I was relieved,
    and I wanted to make sure
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    those guys got over the Pakistan border,
    and landed safely,
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    and I think deeply proud
    and deeply satisfied of my team.
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    - When did you start to feel comfortable
    that Bin Laden had been killed?
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    - When they landed we had very strong
    confirmation at that point
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    that it was him.
    Photographs had been taken.
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    Facial analysis indicated that in fact
    it was him.
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    We hadn't yet done DNA testing,
    but at that point we were 95 percent sure.
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    - Did you see the pictures?
    - Yes.
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    - What was your reaction when you saw them?
    - It was him.
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    - Why haven't you released them?
    - You know we discussed this internally.
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    Keep in mind that we are
    absolutely certain this was him.
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    We've done DNA sampling
    and testing,
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    and so there is no doubt that we killed
    Osama bin Laden.
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    It is important for us to make sure
    that very graphic photos
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    of somebody who was shot in the head
    are not floating around
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    as an incitement to additional violence,
    as a propaganda tool.
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    You know that's not who we are.
    We don't trot out this stuff as trophies.
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    The fact of the matter is this
    was somebody who was deserving
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    of the justice that he received,
    and I think Americans
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    and people around the world
    are glad that he is gone,
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    but we don't need to spike the football,
    and I think that given the graphic nature
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    of these photos it would create
    some national security risk
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    and I've discussed this with
    Bob Gates and Hilary Clinton
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    and my intelligence teams,
    and they all agree.
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    - There are people in Pakistan for example
    who say,
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    "Look. This is all a lie.
    This is another American trick.
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    "Osama's not dead."
    - There's no doubt that Bin Laden is dead.
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    Certainly there is no doubt among
    Al-Qaeda members that he is dead,
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    and so we don't think that a photograph
    in it of itself is going to make
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    any difference.
    There is going to be
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    some folks who deny it
    The fact of the matter is you will not see
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    Bin Laden walking on this Earth again.
    - Was it your decision bury him at sea?
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    - It was a joint decision.
    We thought it was important
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    to think through ahead of time
    how we would dispose of the body
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    if he were killed in the compound,
    and I think that what we tried to do
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    was consulting with experts in Islamic law
    and ritual to find something
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    that was appropriate
    that was respectful of the body.
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    Frankly we took more care on this
    than obviously Bin Laden took
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    when he killed 3,000 people.
    He didn't have much regard
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    for how they were treated
    and desecrated
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    but again is something that makes
    us different.
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    - When the mission was over
    and you walked out of the situation room
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    what did you do?
    What was the first thing you did?
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    - You know I think I walked up with my team
    and I just said, "We got 'em."
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    - The White House released video
    that captured the mood.
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    As aids and congressional leaders
    were given the news.
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    - The reason that I'm calling you
    is to tell you we've kill,
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    we've killed him.
    - And the president thanked
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    cabinet members and advisors
    after Sunday night's speech.
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    - Good job national security team.
    Thank you.
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    - Yeah.
    - I'm proud of you.
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    You guys did a great job.
    It was a moment of great pride for me
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    to see our capacity as a nation
    to execute something this difficult,
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    this well.
    - In a moment president Obama
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    talks about our allies in Pakistan,
    why he chose not to tell them
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    about the mission,
    and where we go from here
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    now that Bin Laden is dead.
Title:
Killing Bin Laden: The President's Story, Part 2
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Duration:
08:25

English subtitles

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