we brought in gunships which can put a bullet on every inch of a football field. the amount of ordinance dropped over a period of two weeks almost defies belief. the mountains were rearranged. reporter: from a radio, word of a dead al qaeda fighter. the americans hear bin laden try to rally the men. we hear him apologize to them for having led them to an area where they are having air strikes on them relentlessly. reporter: with bin laden in the crosshairs burnson wants u.s. forces sent in to finish the job. in the first two or three days of december i would write a message back to washington recommending the insertion of u.s. forces on the ground. i was looking for 600 to 800 rangers, roughly a battalion.
failure, high. would rather die than be captured. at the end of the day it was a leap of faith. reporter: friday, april 29th, just after 8:20 a.m., the mission begins. the president gives the go. the president, after a long night s sleep, he basically came in and immediately told his staff you have the green light. let s go. reporter: as president obama departs for the tornado-ravaged south, the u.s. military s best-kept secret is underway. the troops were ready and in place. the equipment was ready to go. the plan had been practiced again and again and again. reporter: america s most-wanted man may finally be in reach, osama bin laden. the architect of 9/11 had eluded the world s most powerful nation for more than a decade. the trail was quite cold. reporter: former cia director michael hayden recalls the early misfires. most of what we had looked many more like elvis sightings rather than substantive intelligence. u.s. intelligence zeroed in on this co
s.e.a.l.s would rather die than be captured. at the end of the day it was a leap of faith. vi . reporter: friday, april 29, just after 8:20 a.m., the mission begins. the president gives the go. the president, after a long night s sleep, basically came in and immediately told the staff, you ve got the green light. let s go. reporter: as president obama departs for the tornado-ravaged south, the u.s. military s best-kept secret is under way. the troops were ready and in place. the equipment was ready to go. the plan had been practiced again and again and again. reporter: america s most wanted man may finally be in reach. osama bin laden. the architect of 9/11 had eluded the world s most powerful nation for more than a decade. the trail was quite cold. reporter: former cy director michael hayden recalls the early misfires. most of what he had looked more likele elvis sightings than intelligence. reporter: the trail caught fire last august when u.s. intell
burnson, a former cia agent who fought in the early stages of the war. he s also a republican running for the new york senate. gary, good to hear from you. thank you for being with us right now. answer any one of those questions that you care to. is the cost of this war worth it? should we still be there and what is the goal of this war supposed to be? the first thing is i m running for the u.s. senate against chuck schumer. we need to establish security in afghanistan because it impacts on the entire region and the world. you have 24 militant organizations operating along the afghan bush pak border and pakistan is a nation with 90 nuclear weapons. we now are correctly looking at this as the af-pak problem. how we move forward is a combination of things. establishment of security. but the second part of this is
maybe led by westerners but every single peern that fights is an afghan and we need to pull our combat brigades out of that region. gary we ve got over the next five years, $7.5 billion going to afghanistan, they are a major recipient of u.s. money. you brought it up, the af-pak problem, it may be that pakistan is double-dealing. helping the u.s. on one front and the taliban on another front. do you believe that to be true? it is a problem. you attempt to integrate afghanistan more into central asia and away from pakistan. this is a very, very heavy lift, as i stated. it s going to require significant political, military,