of the most daring and important missions in the history of the u.s. military. as bad as a lot of us feel about the way we got out of afghanistan, this is the success story. he caught the man they went for. the architect, the mastermind of 9/11. shannon: there s always been this narrative that then vice president, now president biden was not in favor of moving forward on the mission to get bin laden. fact or fiction, from your research? oh, no. it s fact. on august 28, rather april 28, 2 days or three days before the mission, the president is in the situation room. the final recommendation from the national security council, do we go or not? he turns to joe biden, the vice president. biden says i don t think the case is strong enough that bin laden is there and i am also worried that we are going to really mess up our relations with pakistan. remember this is during the
opposite. first of all, this painstaking, never giving up effort by the intel community that results in a lead that s given to leon panetta on august 27, 2010. his people in the pakistan-afghan counterterrorism department tell him that they have found, they think may be a courier to bin laden to a mysterious compound. on september 10, 1 day short of the ninth anniversary of 9/11, the cia briefs the president. it starts dozens of briefings and meetings in a situation room and throughout the administration of the course of eight months. then they bring the military in and they plan it. it was a perfect case study of the intel community, the political community, and the military wing of the government all working together. forgetting about turf, forgetting about ego. i would think he would say one
what did you find out that was the most surprising or unknown thing about the whole thing? two points, one is the seals. i talked to two of the seals including rob o neill, member of seal team 6 who killed bin laden. he said we thought it was a one-way ticket. i said a one-way ticket? he said it was a suicide mission. if bin laden was there, we were certain the compound was going to be booby trapped we would be blown up. if that didn t happen we climbed up the three stories in the main villa to wear without bin laden was, there would be al qaeda bodyguards who would take us out. they still did it because they said, i remember he said i think of the woman who went to work at the world trade center towers that day and looked out the window after the plane hit and thought, jumping out the window was better than the 250-degree
colleagues is taking a fresh look at the untold story of the 247 day hunt to bring the mastermind of 9/11 to justice. let s bring the author of countdown bin laden, fox news sunday anchor chris wallace. great to be back with you. thanks for having me on to talk about the book. shannon: right now we re looking at this to the lens of this chaotic withdrawal from afghanistan, the news of americans left behind. critics on the left, center, and right. what you talk about in the book is what happens when everything works together. intel, military, the administration. tell us what you found. well, you re exactly right because of what we have seen in the last few weeks is a case study of the military, the intelligence community, the political branch of the government not getting their act together, what happened in 2010 and 11 with the raid to get bin laden is exactly the
inferno inside the towers. that was one surprise. the other is for all the intelligence and all the months of study, on april 28 when obama makes the decision, he says this is a 50/50 proposition. no more than that. he s there or he s not there. completely circumstantial case that bin laden was there and he decided let s go. shannon: chris, it s called countdown bin laden. a compelling read. in light of what s happening now, people will be fascinated by the history 20 years in. so many discoveries that you. congrats on the book. i think folks will find it fascinating. thank you, shannon. thank you so much for having me on. shannon: finally tonight, sanitation worker being hailed as hero. his quick thinking save a little boy from being hit by a vehicle. security camera footage shows boy waiting for a garbage truck to pass without looking both ways tries to make it across the street is a car comes flying down the road.