today, at my direction, the small team of americans carried out the operation when that helicopter was seen to be unable to move, all of a sudden you had to go into plan b. and they did it flawlessly. i m fascinated by the fact that there was a neighbor next to this compound tweeting live tweeting during the raid. go away, helicopter before i take out my giant swatter. d.n.a. analysis confirms with 100% certainty that in fact it was osama bin laden killed. by how did osama bin laden hide in plain sight for so long? this was not a cave. no. the united states has been pakistan s backer. $18 billion in foreign aid over the last decade, as you mentioned. and yet, osama bin laden was in pakistan. i think it s inconceivable that bin laden did not have a support system in the country. bin laden holding up there over the course of the last six years.
operating in pakistan to the white house? it s a very high tech c.i.s. operation. what we understand is they were wearing helmet-mounted camera that was allowing the live feed to go back in. to give you a sense of how on top of this president obama was, the man sitting to the right of him was the number three man brigadier general brad webb. to give you an idea of how hands on this was for president obama, godspeed. very much was involved with micro managing this operation. how much did the exercise against is somali pirates build the president s confidence saying yes, this team can do this? this was the first time we know of that president obama authorized a hit of this nature. i m told by people in the special ops committee that it made president obama impressed with the ability of these s.e.a.l.s to execute this mission. if you want somebody taken down swiftly you send in s. aechlt. l. team six. they re there to kill the bad guys.
disagreements and differences in the past. i suspect we ll have them again in the future. but, last night as americans learned that the united states had carried out an operation that resulted in the capture and death of osama bin laden [ applause ] thank you. you know, i think we experienced the same sense of unity that per vailed on 9/11. we were reminded again that there s a pride in what this nation stands for. and what we can achieve that
cia. white house officials were very clear that this was a cia commanded operation using s.e.a.l. team six, the special op rations group. so a very impressive amount of coordination there. but again it s a contrast to the friction you saw frequently between the rumsfeld pentagon, powell state department in the cia under tennent back then. when you look at your work and bob woodward s work, there seems to be a personal quality to that tension. it doesn t seem to be institutional and traditional. it does seem to be rumsfeld personality-based and others. is that more typical that what we seem to be seeing in the obama administration what is a group of people who seem to get along and respect each other? i think so. you always see institutional frictions, but i think they got very personal in the bush administration. there s a calmness about this
that high value that that high value target was indeed osama bin laden. starting on march 14th, the president shared the first of at least nine national security council meetings to review plans for a course of action. all while congress negotiated a budget resolution to avoid a government shutdown. on friday of last week at 8:20 a.m. in the diplomatic room the president authorized the military operation to take out bin laden. before leaving to survey tornado devastation in alabama. no foreign government including pakistan was informed the operation was originally scheduled for saturday, but weather pushed it to sunday. on saturday evening, the president attended the white house correspondents dinner where he let on nothing, obviously when seth myers