additional training, they may get selected to go through the screening process for s.e.a.l. team 6, and 50% of those don t make it. so by the time you reach s.e.a.l. team 6, you are truly the best of the best. and there is an army counterpart, delta. and both of them are nearly interchangeable in today s warfare. and they represent the tier one, the nation s 911 force, and you don t get any better than these guys. and let s say commander, this will be a stunning coup. what will their reaction will be when they get back? they re only human. my understanding is when the target was announced that it was bin laden, that great cheers went up. and i can only imagine that when they all returned from that operation, that they had successfully killed bin laden, and that all of them had come off the target safe, that they must have been elated. it was a fantastic success for them and for all of the united states.
certainly using computers to get out his message. either audio messages or video messages. so it may have been part of that mechanism as well. nic, given all what you ve found out, is it credible that no one at any high government level or military level in pakistan had a clue that bin laden was in this compound? reporter: i think the best clues we have come from the neighbors. described how they view this family and the family was very secretive. but just to give you another idea about it. they said when local kids kicked their soccer balls into that compound, in all the other compounds around here, people say that the children would be able to go in, find their balls, take them, and leave. but when they went to the bin laden compound, the people who met them at the door gave them money, told them they couldn t come in, and just to go and buy another soccer ball in the market. so you can get this picture that this family was incredibly secretive.
before, storing it on hard drives and such. it s not clear. but this is a man who was using the internet through couriers, certainly using computers to get out his message. either audio messages or video messages. so it may have been part of that mechanism as well. nic, given all what you ve found out, is it credible that no one at any high government level or military level in pakistan had a clue that bin laden was in this compound? reporter: i think the best clues we have come from the neighbors. described how they view this family and the family was very secretive. but just to give you another idea about it. they said when local kids kicked their soccer balls into that compound, in all the other compounds around here, people say that the children would be able to go in, find their balls, take them, and leave. but when they went to the bin laden compound, the people who met them at the door gave them
absolutely. this is what they trained for every single day. these men had made it through the hardest military training in the world. the basic underwater demolition s.e.a.l. training, and on top of that training, they ve got years of experience under their belt, and they would have relentlessly prepared for this specific operation so they could react to any contingency and guarantee success. the whole thing took 40 minutes. the only casualty was a helicopter, of the four helicopters. it stalled and then was destroyed deliberately. a remarkably cost-free operation in terms of the s.e.a.l.s. there are three principles they would have used in order to bring about that kind of cost-free operation in their planning. one was surprise and then speed and violence of action. so the idea is to hit the enemy when they re not expecting it, hit them fast, and hit them hard. and they clearly did that to great effect when they took out bin laden. this whole issue, whether bin laden was armed