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

Last Sunday, as the final preparations
for the raid were under way.

President Obama continued
with his charade of business as usual.

Most people in the White House,
including some of his closest aides

had no idea what was about to happen.
To break the tension

and clear his head
he played some golf in the morning.

Waiting for the sun to go down
in Pakistan,

then he returned to the White House
for the most critical,

forty minutes of his presidency.
In mid afternoon he gathered

the architects of the mission
in a windowless room,

in the White House basement
to watch it all unfold.

- The story will continue in a moment.

- I want to go to the situation room.
- Yep.

- What was the mood?
- Tense.

- People talking?
- Yeah but doing a lot of listening as well

cause we were able to monitor
the situation in real time

getting reports back for Bill McRaven.
The head of our special forces operations

as well as Leon Panetta.
There were big chunks of time

in which all we were doing
was just waiting,

and it was the longest forty minutes
of my life with the possible exception

of when Sasha got meningitis
when she was three months old,

and I was waiting for the doctor
to tell me she was all right.

It was a very tense situation.
- Were you nervous?

- Yes.
- What could you see?

- We were monitoring the situation,
and we knew as events unfolded

what was happening in,
in and around the compound

we could not get information
clearly about what was happening

inside the compound.
- Right, and that went on

for a long time?
Could you hear gun fire?

- We had a sense of when gun fire
and explosions took place.

- Flashes?
- Yeah and we also knew

when one of the helicopters went down
in a way that wasn't according to plan,

and as you might imagine
that made us more tense.

- So it got off to a bad start?
- Well it did not go exactly

according to plan,
but this is exactly where all the work

that had been done anticipating what
might go wrong made a huge difference.

- There was a back up plan?
- There was a back up plan.

- You had to blow up some walls?
- We had to blow up some walls.

- Where was the first indication
that you had found the right place

that Bin Laden was in there?
- There was a point before folks had left,

before we had gotten everybody
back on the helicopter

and were flying back to base
where they said,

"Geronimo is, has been killed."
and Geronimo was the code name

for Bin Laden
and now obviously at that point

there guys were operating in the dark
with all kinds of stuff going on.

So everybody was cautious,
but at that point, cautiously optimistic.

- What was your reaction when
you heard those words?

- I was relieved,
and I wanted to make sure

those guys got over the Pakistan border,
and landed safely,

and I think deeply proud
and deeply satisfied of my team.

- When did you start to feel comfortable
that Bin Laden had been killed?

- When they landed we had very strong
confirmation at that point

that it was him.
Photographs had been taken.

Facial analysis indicated that in fact
it was him.

We hadn't yet done DNA testing,
but at that point we were 95 percent sure.

- Did you see the pictures?
- Yes.

- What was your reaction when you saw them?
- It was him.

- Why haven't you released them?
- You know we discussed this internally.

Keep in mind that we are
absolutely certain this was him.

We've done DNA sampling
and testing,

and so there is no doubt that we killed
Osama bin Laden.

It is important for us to make sure
that very graphic photos

of somebody who was shot in the head
are not floating around

as an incitement to additional violence,
as a propaganda tool.

You know that's not who we are.
We don't trot out this stuff as trophies.

The fact of the matter is this
was somebody who was deserving

of the justice that he received,
and I think Americans

and people around the world
are glad that he is gone,

but we don't need to spike the football,
and I think that given the graphic nature

of these photos it would create
some national security risk

and I've discussed this with
Bob Gates and Hilary Clinton

and my intelligence teams,
and they all agree.

- There are people in Pakistan for example
who say,

"Look. This is all a lie.
This is another American trick.

"Osama's not dead."
- There's no doubt that Bin Laden is dead.

Certainly there is no doubt among
Al-Qaeda members that he is dead,

and so we don't think that a photograph
in it of itself is going to make

any difference.
There is going to be

some folks who deny it
The fact of the matter is you will not see

Bin Laden walking on this Earth again.
- Was it your decision bury him at sea?

- It was a joint decision.
We thought it was important

to think through ahead of time
how we would dispose of the body

if he were killed in the compound,
and I think that what we tried to do

was consulting with experts in Islamic law
and ritual to find something

that was appropriate
that was respectful of the body.

Frankly we took more care on this
than obviously Bin Laden took

when he killed 3,000 people.
He didn't have much regard

for how they were treated
and desecrated

but again is something that makes
us different.

- When the mission was over
and you walked out of the situation room

what did you do?
What was the first thing you did?

- You know I think I walked up with my team
and I just said, "We got 'em."

- The White House released video
that captured the mood.

As aids and congressional leaders
were given the news.

- The reason that I'm calling you
is to tell you we've kill,

we've killed him.
- And the president thanked

cabinet members and advisors
after Sunday night's speech.

- Good job national security team.
Thank you.

- Yeah.
- I'm proud of you.

You guys did a great job.
It was a moment of great pride for me

to see our capacity as a nation
to execute something this difficult,

this well.
- In a moment president Obama

talks about our allies in Pakistan,
why he chose not to tell them

about the mission,
and where we go from here

now that Bin Laden is dead.