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CIA officers located at Khost

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were very excited about the possibility

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of being able to get a source
that might lead us to bin Laden.

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And so he wasn't searched.
He was basically waved through.

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There is the entire CIA team,

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contractors, special forces,
analysts, case officers.

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They've all come outside to be there
for his arrival.

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This is a potentially very big deal.

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There is so much tension.

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He got out on the other side of the car,

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and our security people
went around and said,

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"Take your hands out of your robes."

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And they got very concerned
because he wouldn't do it.

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They didn't understand
that the asset was the bomb.

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I was sitting on my family room floor,

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and I get a phone call.

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She's like,
"Tracy, there was a big explosion."

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I was like, "What are you talking about?"

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I… I don't think I even had the TV on.

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Right? Like, I didn't know
what had happened.

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Now to Afghanistan.

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Tonight, there are startling new facts
about the suicide attack

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that killed seven CIA officers.

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The attacker was invited
to enter that base,

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and he was not searched.

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This is for you.

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It's not watch. It's detonator.

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You will be sent to the hell.

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Here's a man
who had never been seen by the Americans,

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and yet they let him get into
this very secure CIA base.

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Then he is able to…
to explode this device.

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The flag at CIA headquarters
flew at half-staff today

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for seven of its own.

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Director Leon Panetta said they died
far from home and close to the enemy.

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Too close, it turned out.

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My colleague Jennifer Matthews
was the CIA base chief

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in Khost, Afghanistan.

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We were like a cadre.

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I had been working with Jennifer
on al-Qaida

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since before we knew it was al-Qaida.

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Then Gina called me and told me
Jennifer had been killed.

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It was so hard to hear.

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And I remember going to church,

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and the standard prayers,
everybody who served in the military.

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I'm like, "What about us?"

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"What about Jennifer?"

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It was just hard to hear
the stream of people from her childhood,

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you know, her kids, talk about her

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'cause of course,
they didn't know what she did.

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Mm-mm.

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I remember going to the funerals
of every single one of the CIA officers.

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And I noticed that, as we were driving
in very, very cold weather,

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I saw a family standing
on their front porch

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with a sign
that they were holding that said,

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"Thank you for keeping us safe."

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I remember

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talking to their family members.

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The parents I talked to said,

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"Don't give up on the mission

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that cost our loved one their life."

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"Don't give up on it."

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And the mission, obviously,
was to continue the search for bin Laden.

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I say to the American people

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that, God willing,
we will continue to kill you.

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If al-Qaida thought that
the Khost attack was gonna weaken us,

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they were dead wrong.

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It had directly the opposite effect.

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It steeled our resolve.

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Khost made it personal.

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Made it very personal.

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We're getting closer and closer
to the ten-year anniversary of 9/11,

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and there's an increased demand
and desire to find bin Laden.

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Osama bin Laden is still wanted,
still continuing to haunt Americans.

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A $25 million bounty remains
hanging over his head.

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We've supposedly got spies
and strike teams

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all over the place looking for him.

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How could this guy still be out there?

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We had had our heart broken so many times

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with all these terrible leads
and almost thinking we were there.

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00:05:23,072 --> 00:05:24,741
"He's in this location, in that location."

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The military spun up more than once
trying to potentially capture him,

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but it never panned out.

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House is clear. Go ahead.

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It was…

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…so frustrating.

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It also begs the question
of just how intelligent

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our intelligence agencies really are.

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The CIA at that point
was under political attack

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from both parties, really.

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Isn't it a failure of your administration?
You haven't captured him.

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You don't seem to know where he is.

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Well…

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It, um…

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I… I think

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capturing or killing, uh, bin Laden
would be extremely important

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to our national security.

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There was an immense amount of pressure

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on CIA and the intelligence community
as a whole to do more.

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Double down on bin Laden and al-Qaida.

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On the day of 9/11,
I was working at the Pentagon.

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On my branch,
I was the only, sole survivor.

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I was badly burned,

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but I was able to bounce back
and keep fighting every day thereafter.

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-How do you feel?
-I'm feeling great.

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Thank God.

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In 2009, a friend
reached out to me and said,

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"Kevin, we could really use your help
to be part of the bin Laden team."

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"As its one and only mission,
find bin Laden."

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I told my team, "Every week, I want you
to come into my office and report to me."

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"What you're looking at,
what you're finding,

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what clues do you have,
what possible evidence do you have?"

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Where could he have gone
if he fled Afghanistan? Where did he go?

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Is he still alive? You have
all these questions the whole time.

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And so,
when he made an appearance on television,

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it would be analyzed to death.

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We started focusing on every aspect
of bin Laden's media statements.

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We would listen
to bin Laden's tapes to see whether or not

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you could pick up the sound
of something that might tell you

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where he might be located.

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The sound of a bird
or the sound of industry.

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Is he sending hidden messages?

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What's in the background
that might give away where he might be?

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We also tried to trace
how his videos were delivered to the news.

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He had to have a way of getting messages
in and out of wherever he was.

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They were not trusting
any electronic devices

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or phones or anything,

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so they're probably going
by hand, by couriers.

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If we could find and locate,
track a courier,

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that would potentially lead us
to bin Laden's location.

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CIA followed every lead.

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This lead about the courier
starts way back in 2002.

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We knew there was an individual
who was a trusted bin Laden courier,

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and great efforts were taken
to identify that name.

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Detainees provided fake names.

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Some said there was no courier,

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and others said there was a courier,
but he had retired.

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It was extremely difficult
to unravel the lies about the courier.

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And then, in late 2002,
there was an al-Qaida operative

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in the custody
of a North African government

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who had been arrested

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and was being interrogated
about what he knew, who he knew.

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And in that interrogation,

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he mentioned that an individual,
who he said worked with bin Laden

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prior to 9/11

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and worked
with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed post-9/11

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and who was a courier between the two…

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And he said the name of the courier was…

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Abu Ahmed.

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That information, of course,
we were very interested in.

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We asked KSM,

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still being detained
in a secret CIA prison,

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"What do you know about Abu Ahmed?"

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KSM had undergone
enhanced interrogation techniques.

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He was telling us
pretty much anything we wanted to know.

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He told us, "Yeah, I heard of Abu Ahmed,
but he's not with al-Qaida anymore."

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He goes back to his cell,
which we have bugged,

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and he told
all the other al-Qaida operatives

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who were with him,

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"Nobody… nobody talk about the courier."

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KSM was doing everything he could
to protect the courier

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because he knew that Abu Ahmed
could take us to bin Laden.

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So we are zeroed in
on trying to find Abu Ahmed.

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Bin Laden and KSM couldn't
have picked a better person.

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He was exhibiting
a lot of good operational security

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that made it very difficult to find him.

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Eventually, we figured out he was Kuwaiti.

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We pursued every possible lead,
and we had no idea what he looked like.

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He was an enigma.

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It was a long, hard, steady strain
to try to determine his pattern of life,

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his movements, where he would travel to,

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what type of communications he was using,
how he was using those communications.

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We were worried about making mistakes

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that would inadvertently tip him off

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to the fact that we were looking for him.

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So all of that goes from 2002 to 2010.

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Eight years to find him,
you know, on the planet.

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In the summer of 2010,
we had a breakthrough moment.

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We tracked his phone
to a town in Pakistan called Peshawar…

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and we were able to pick up a phone call.

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He was talking
to somebody who knew him from the past.

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His friend was asking him,
"What are you doing now?"

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"I haven't heard from you.
I haven't seen you."

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00:12:01,387 --> 00:12:03,222
"Uh… what are you doing?"

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And he kept trying to say,

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"You know, I'm just…
I'm staying busy. I'm working."

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And his friend just didn't give up.

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He said, "Well, yeah,
but… but what are you doing?

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"What exactly are you doing?"

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And there was a moment of silence.

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And then he said,
"I'm doing what I did before."

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Immediately, the friend said,
"Then go with Allah."

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It was clear that what he had done
before is to work for bin Laden.

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We needed to have
human intelligence on the ground.

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People think about intelligence work
as analysts reading reports.

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00:12:46,307 --> 00:12:47,641
I mean the people on the street.

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As a task force commander,

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I was based in Kabul,
and then I had places all over the region.

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We need intelligence
that validated all the information.

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00:13:00,696 --> 00:13:02,323
What do we think we know?

200
00:13:02,406 --> 00:13:04,992
What do we know we don't know?
What do we see?

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00:13:10,372 --> 00:13:14,794
We watch the courier
get into a little white SUV.

202
00:13:15,544 --> 00:13:18,214
There are a lot of white SUVs in Pakistan.

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00:13:20,966 --> 00:13:24,303
And our CIA officers followed it
from Peshawar

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00:13:25,221 --> 00:13:27,056
to a town called Abbottabad.

205
00:13:32,686 --> 00:13:36,482
Finally, the vehicle pulled
into this large house.

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A bunch of indicators strongly suggested

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00:13:45,074 --> 00:13:46,826
that there's something
going on in this house.

208
00:13:46,909 --> 00:13:49,912
This was very different
from anything that we had seen.

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00:13:51,330 --> 00:13:54,166
What we saw was a compound
that was much larger

210
00:13:54,250 --> 00:13:57,294
than any compound in the area.

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00:13:57,962 --> 00:14:00,464
We learned that the courier, Abu Ahmed,

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00:14:00,548 --> 00:14:03,217
had purchased the house in 2005,

213
00:14:03,717 --> 00:14:07,972
in an expensive part of Abbottabad,
with no visible means of income.

214
00:14:08,973 --> 00:14:11,642
There were walls
that were 12 to 18 foot high,

215
00:14:11,725 --> 00:14:13,352
topped with barbed wire,

216
00:14:13,435 --> 00:14:14,645
and there was a balcony…

217
00:14:16,647 --> 00:14:17,606
…with a privacy wall.

218
00:14:21,694 --> 00:14:26,824
Abbottabad is known to be
a tourist area because of the mountains.

219
00:14:27,324 --> 00:14:31,287
So why would you put
an eight-foot wall on the third floor?

220
00:14:32,246 --> 00:14:35,291
The security of the top floor
is just weird.

221
00:14:36,125 --> 00:14:38,627
You know, you start
putting these pieces together.

222
00:14:38,711 --> 00:14:41,505
This is someone
who didn't wanna be seen at all.

223
00:14:42,590 --> 00:14:44,300
This was highly suspicious,

224
00:14:44,383 --> 00:14:46,760
set off alarm bells across the team.

225
00:14:47,761 --> 00:14:49,555
It was pretty clear

226
00:14:49,638 --> 00:14:52,600
that somebody of high value
was located there.

227
00:15:02,776 --> 00:15:06,030
I immediately went
to the President of the United States

228
00:15:06,530 --> 00:15:08,449
and briefed him on what we had found.

229
00:15:09,992 --> 00:15:11,410
We first briefed

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00:15:11,493 --> 00:15:13,829
senior Department of Defense official
Mike Vickers,

231
00:15:13,913 --> 00:15:16,707
and Head of Counterterrorism
at the White House, John Brennan.

232
00:15:17,833 --> 00:15:21,045
Michael Morell called me the day before
and let me know that this was gonna be

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00:15:21,128 --> 00:15:24,423
very sensitive information that was
gonna be passed to President Obama.

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00:15:24,924 --> 00:15:26,759
From this first meeting
with the president,

235
00:15:27,509 --> 00:15:29,720
Leon Panetta comes in and said,

236
00:15:29,803 --> 00:15:33,599
"We were able to geolocate
bin Laden's courier

237
00:15:33,682 --> 00:15:36,769
and then follow him back,
and then here's this compound."

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00:15:38,896 --> 00:15:42,483
I said, "Mr. President,
we had a very high suspicion

239
00:15:42,566 --> 00:15:45,402
that bin Laden
might possibly be located there."

240
00:15:47,112 --> 00:15:51,867
President Obama was cautiously optimistic
that this might in fact be something

241
00:15:51,951 --> 00:15:56,664
that we had never seen before
as far as an actual lead.

242
00:15:57,289 --> 00:16:00,626
At the end of the briefing,
the president gave us two orders,

243
00:16:00,709 --> 00:16:03,837
and Barack Obama was not
the giving orders type.

244
00:16:04,880 --> 00:16:07,675
The first was, "Leon, Michael,

245
00:16:07,758 --> 00:16:10,844
find out what the hell is happening
in that compound."

246
00:16:12,012 --> 00:16:15,057
And number two, "Don't tell anyone."

247
00:16:16,767 --> 00:16:19,311
"This is the circle of trust, right here."

248
00:16:20,354 --> 00:16:23,482
"Nobody else in our government
is to know about this."

249
00:16:29,196 --> 00:16:32,199
We began constant surveillance,

250
00:16:32,282 --> 00:16:36,203
looking at everything
that went on in that compound.

251
00:16:37,705 --> 00:16:40,290
It's very difficult to get intelligence.

252
00:16:41,291 --> 00:16:44,420
There was no phone and no internet.

253
00:16:45,379 --> 00:16:47,506
The cell phones Abu Ahmed used,

254
00:16:47,589 --> 00:16:51,510
he didn't put the batteries in
until he was well away from Abbottabad.

255
00:16:53,220 --> 00:16:55,639
He practiced
extraordinary operational security.

256
00:16:58,892 --> 00:17:02,479
Director Panetta came up with
his own ideas for collecting intelligence.

257
00:17:03,272 --> 00:17:05,232
Like, "Can't we put
cameras in those trees?"

258
00:17:05,816 --> 00:17:08,819
Others thought,
"What if we could collect their garbage

259
00:17:08,902 --> 00:17:10,487
for possible clues?"

260
00:17:10,988 --> 00:17:14,158
But they would never allow
their garbage to be taken out.

261
00:17:14,241 --> 00:17:16,618
They basically burned their garbage.

262
00:17:17,870 --> 00:17:20,789
We were working with a doctor
to go to the compound,

263
00:17:20,873 --> 00:17:22,416
provide polio shots,

264
00:17:22,499 --> 00:17:24,710
and get a sample of the blood.

265
00:17:24,793 --> 00:17:30,049
Our hope was to be able to use that
to verify that it was bin Laden's family.

266
00:17:31,592 --> 00:17:34,511
The couriers refused
to allow them to come in.

267
00:17:35,262 --> 00:17:39,058
Over time,
we began seeing women and children

268
00:17:39,141 --> 00:17:41,185
coming in and out of the compound,

269
00:17:41,268 --> 00:17:44,021
so we start tracking them,
monitoring them.

270
00:17:44,104 --> 00:17:45,606
And what we discovered

271
00:17:45,689 --> 00:17:48,817
was that there were two families
living at the compound,

272
00:17:48,901 --> 00:17:50,569
Abu Ahmed and his brother.

273
00:17:56,450 --> 00:18:01,205
But when we looked very closely
at the satellite photography…

274
00:18:03,457 --> 00:18:06,001
we learn that
there's a third family in the house.

275
00:18:07,377 --> 00:18:09,296
It never leaves the compound.

276
00:18:12,049 --> 00:18:14,051
The children did not go to school,

277
00:18:14,134 --> 00:18:17,805
unlike all the other kids
in this particular part of Pakistan.

278
00:18:19,098 --> 00:18:22,226
We identified,
by looking at the clothesline,

279
00:18:23,268 --> 00:18:26,105
how many members of the family
were living there.

280
00:18:27,689 --> 00:18:31,026
We did have enough of a count
of children and the adults

281
00:18:31,110 --> 00:18:34,863
to create a high degree of suspicion
on who this third family might be.

282
00:18:46,667 --> 00:18:51,130
At one point, we saw
an individual who was a little older

283
00:18:51,213 --> 00:18:53,966
who would come out of the house

284
00:18:54,967 --> 00:18:58,929
and walk in circles,
like a prisoner in a prison yard.

285
00:19:01,056 --> 00:19:04,601
Every day, he would
come out and walk in the garden.

286
00:19:05,519 --> 00:19:06,520
Every day.

287
00:19:07,020 --> 00:19:08,313
We called him the Pacer.

288
00:19:09,523 --> 00:19:11,608
Using what's called mensuration,

289
00:19:11,692 --> 00:19:14,403
we see a person,
the sun is shining this way,

290
00:19:14,486 --> 00:19:15,737
it casts a shadow.

291
00:19:16,321 --> 00:19:18,157
Measure the size of the shadow,

292
00:19:18,240 --> 00:19:21,827
figure out the precise height
of whatever's making the shadow.

293
00:19:21,910 --> 00:19:25,038
And the precise height was
about the same height as Osama bin Laden.

294
00:19:26,582 --> 00:19:29,668
Literally, the hair
on the back of my neck stood up.

295
00:19:29,751 --> 00:19:33,005
"Oh my God, we may have found him."

296
00:19:34,756 --> 00:19:37,801
I had seen many
of the other leads to bin Laden.

297
00:19:37,885 --> 00:19:41,096
They were nothing
in terms of the same caliber of this one.

298
00:19:42,848 --> 00:19:46,143
I remember saying, "For
goodness' sakes, this could be bin Laden."

299
00:19:47,895 --> 00:19:52,191
"Do whatever you need to do
in order to get me a facial."

300
00:19:52,274 --> 00:19:55,652
And they said, "You know,
it's very difficult to do, Director."

301
00:19:55,736 --> 00:19:59,615
"We got 18-foot walls on one side,
12-foot walls on another side."

302
00:19:59,698 --> 00:20:01,116
"We can't get a good shot."

303
00:20:04,077 --> 00:20:06,330
And I remember saying to them, "You know,

304
00:20:06,413 --> 00:20:09,416
I've seen movies
where the CIA can do this."

305
00:20:10,209 --> 00:20:12,419
And we laughed. Everyone laughed.

306
00:20:12,502 --> 00:20:15,839
But they weren't able
to get a clear picture.

307
00:20:17,758 --> 00:20:21,220
Director Panetta puts
an immense amount of pressure

308
00:20:21,303 --> 00:20:23,472
on the Counterterrorism Center
to learn more.

309
00:20:27,643 --> 00:20:31,480
One day, I was asked
to come to the bin Laden unit at the CIA

310
00:20:31,563 --> 00:20:34,983
and give a briefing
on interviewing Osama bin Laden.

311
00:20:35,067 --> 00:20:38,779
And I'm like, "Mmm,
it's kind of an old story, but okay."

312
00:20:41,240 --> 00:20:44,034
I did the bin Laden interview in 1998.

313
00:20:44,618 --> 00:20:48,038
And it was the only interview
I've ever done in my lifetime

314
00:20:48,121 --> 00:20:50,415
that kept getting bigger afterwards.

315
00:20:52,626 --> 00:20:56,171
Now I'm sat down with the CIA
going through the footage.

316
00:21:00,968 --> 00:21:03,303
And I think
they're gonna be interested in,

317
00:21:03,387 --> 00:21:05,222
"What was the security like
around bin Laden?"

318
00:21:05,305 --> 00:21:07,432
"How did he move in? How did he move out?"

319
00:21:07,516 --> 00:21:08,850
Radio communications.

320
00:21:11,019 --> 00:21:14,106
So I'm going through it
in a good deal of detail,

321
00:21:15,357 --> 00:21:19,278
and they say, "Do you have
any extra footage of him walking around?"

322
00:21:20,153 --> 00:21:23,532
Why would they want
more film of him walking around?

323
00:21:29,037 --> 00:21:30,706
I had no idea at the time,

324
00:21:30,789 --> 00:21:36,336
but it turns out that they wanted footage
to determine if the gait, the slight limp,

325
00:21:36,420 --> 00:21:39,423
the posture of the Pacer

326
00:21:40,007 --> 00:21:42,092
matched bin Laden's walk

327
00:21:42,175 --> 00:21:45,470
from the closest footage
that anybody had of him walking,

328
00:21:45,554 --> 00:21:49,391
which was him coming
to that meeting with me in 1998,

329
00:21:50,267 --> 00:21:51,685
for comparison.

330
00:21:52,352 --> 00:21:53,645
But I had no idea about that.

331
00:21:55,272 --> 00:21:58,817
Although Miller's footage showed
there were similarities,

332
00:21:59,401 --> 00:22:02,612
it wasn't conclusive evidence
that bin Laden was there.

333
00:22:03,155 --> 00:22:05,824
Of course, I'm thinking
that that could be bin Laden.

334
00:22:05,907 --> 00:22:07,409
Everyone was thinking it.

335
00:22:07,909 --> 00:22:10,746
It's a matter of proving it to the degree

336
00:22:10,829 --> 00:22:14,833
that a decision maker felt confident
enough to take some action on that.

337
00:22:17,669 --> 00:22:19,629
Every week, they would report to me.

338
00:22:20,213 --> 00:22:24,468
Sometimes they would come in and say,
"We haven't found anything new."

339
00:22:24,551 --> 00:22:25,844
And I said to them,

340
00:22:26,762 --> 00:22:29,389
"That's not good enough.
That's not good enough."

341
00:22:31,183 --> 00:22:34,436
As a survival mechanism
for what you're dealing with at work,

342
00:22:34,519 --> 00:22:36,980
you become so detached from emotion.

343
00:22:38,690 --> 00:22:41,485
It was hard on so many levels.

344
00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:49,618
I was building
these movies of memories of my son,

345
00:22:49,701 --> 00:22:52,204
because he was getting ready
to graduate from high school,

346
00:22:52,287 --> 00:22:54,873
and all these movies
of things that he had done

347
00:22:55,665 --> 00:22:56,708
that I didn't remember.

348
00:22:58,627 --> 00:23:01,797
I had no memory
of these events in my son's life.

349
00:23:02,798 --> 00:23:03,799
And

350
00:23:04,800 --> 00:23:07,469
I remember
going into work that night angry.

351
00:23:08,470 --> 00:23:10,680
I had to really kind of grapple with,

352
00:23:11,264 --> 00:23:14,101
I chose to keep doing it.

353
00:23:18,063 --> 00:23:20,482
There was always a sense of,
"We're not doing enough,"

354
00:23:20,565 --> 00:23:21,942
you know, working weekends,

355
00:23:22,943 --> 00:23:25,112
you know, missing family members.

356
00:23:28,156 --> 00:23:29,783
And then my mom passed away

357
00:23:30,951 --> 00:23:32,828
during the middle of the hunt.

358
00:23:32,911 --> 00:23:33,954
And…

359
00:23:36,706 --> 00:23:38,834
I had told her before she died…

360
00:23:38,917 --> 00:23:41,795
You know, I said, "I'm working
on something really important."

361
00:23:42,879 --> 00:23:44,840
You know? "And hopefully, you'll…"

362
00:23:44,923 --> 00:23:47,134
"Hopefully, you'll end up seeing it."

363
00:23:49,428 --> 00:23:52,055
And so when she died of cancer,

364
00:23:52,139 --> 00:23:53,932
the only thing
that got me through my grief

365
00:23:54,015 --> 00:23:57,102
was having a really big responsibility.

366
00:23:57,185 --> 00:23:58,937
I knew we were making progress.

367
00:24:00,355 --> 00:24:03,984
But I was obsessed
with building the intelligence case

368
00:24:04,067 --> 00:24:06,236
that bin Laden was in that compound.

369
00:24:08,572 --> 00:24:13,910
At that point, the chances
of being able to acquire 100% certainty

370
00:24:13,994 --> 00:24:17,914
that he was there were extremely unlikely.

371
00:24:19,583 --> 00:24:24,504
There was also the fear that bin Laden
could realize that he'd been discovered.

372
00:24:26,131 --> 00:24:28,675
Bin Laden could leave that compound
at any moment,

373
00:24:28,758 --> 00:24:31,428
and so it was too much of a risk
to continue to collect.

374
00:24:41,897 --> 00:24:43,982
We were getting closer
to making a decision

375
00:24:44,065 --> 00:24:46,485
about taking action against the compound.

376
00:24:47,068 --> 00:24:50,363
So the president wanted to know
what were the prospects

377
00:24:50,447 --> 00:24:53,116
for us getting more intelligence,

378
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:55,869
being able to confirm
bin Laden's presence there.

379
00:24:57,579 --> 00:25:02,167
We did not have 100% evidence
that bin Laden was truly there.

380
00:25:03,001 --> 00:25:05,462
It was a circumstantial case.

381
00:25:06,421 --> 00:25:09,591
There was not a single piece
of direct evidence that he was there.

382
00:25:10,675 --> 00:25:13,845
I said, "Mr. President, you need to know

383
00:25:13,929 --> 00:25:19,059
that the case that Saddam had
weapons of mass destruction…"

384
00:25:23,063 --> 00:25:26,775
"…is stronger than the case
that bin Laden is at Abbottabad."

385
00:25:27,275 --> 00:25:29,402
You could've heard a pin drop
in that room.

386
00:25:31,571 --> 00:25:33,823
This is a major
national security decision.

387
00:25:35,242 --> 00:25:38,870
His political advisors told him that,
if this was a failed operation,

388
00:25:38,954 --> 00:25:43,792
that his public image
would be diminished significantly.

389
00:25:43,875 --> 00:25:47,003
So that… that, to me,
was the greatest political risk,

390
00:25:47,087 --> 00:25:50,715
is an operation that could kill
a bunch of US service members.

391
00:25:50,799 --> 00:25:51,800
A kind of Carter rerun.

392
00:25:52,759 --> 00:25:57,180
When the Islamic Revolution happened
in Iran, embassy gets overrun,

393
00:25:57,264 --> 00:25:58,932
a whole bunch of hostages get taken.

394
00:25:59,558 --> 00:26:03,687
President Carter ordered the helicopters
into Iran to rescue the hostages,

395
00:26:03,770 --> 00:26:06,898
and they crashed in the desert,
and a lot of people died.

396
00:26:07,399 --> 00:26:10,652
And it just made him look weak.
It made the US look weak.

397
00:26:11,152 --> 00:26:15,031
The Carter comparison was like,
"If this is a botched operation,

398
00:26:16,157 --> 00:26:17,826
the year before an election…"

399
00:26:17,909 --> 00:26:19,077
Carter didn't get reelected.

400
00:26:21,079 --> 00:26:24,833
I heard President Obama say,
"I don't care about the politics."

401
00:26:24,916 --> 00:26:26,126
"It's been too long

402
00:26:26,793 --> 00:26:30,630
that bin Laden has been able
to escape the hands of US justice."

403
00:26:31,715 --> 00:26:33,091
The president said,

404
00:26:33,174 --> 00:26:38,179
"I would like you to prepare operations
to go after this compound."

405
00:26:39,848 --> 00:26:42,892
He says, "I haven't decided to do this,

406
00:26:42,976 --> 00:26:46,271
but if we do, we're gonna do it
sooner rather than later."

407
00:26:46,938 --> 00:26:48,315
"Prepare the plan."

408
00:26:52,902 --> 00:26:54,029
A phone rang.

409
00:26:54,112 --> 00:26:56,197
It was the vice-chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

410
00:26:56,906 --> 00:27:00,577
He says, "Look, the CIA thinks
they have a lead on Osama bin Laden."

411
00:27:00,660 --> 00:27:03,622
His eyes lit up. This is a SEAL.

412
00:27:03,705 --> 00:27:05,582
This is like a dream come true.

413
00:27:06,416 --> 00:27:08,376
The business I'm in is hostage rescue

414
00:27:08,460 --> 00:27:10,837
and raids on terrorist organizations.

415
00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:14,257
But this was the biggest mission,
uh, certainly in my career.

416
00:27:16,718 --> 00:27:19,554
A year earlier,
I'd been diagnosed with cancer,

417
00:27:19,638 --> 00:27:21,348
chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

418
00:27:22,390 --> 00:27:24,768
But the cancer had not evolved
to the point

419
00:27:24,851 --> 00:27:28,063
where it was, uh… it was taking away
from my ability to command.

420
00:27:28,730 --> 00:27:31,524
As unfortunate as it was,
it gave me cover for action,

421
00:27:31,608 --> 00:27:34,944
meaning that I had a plausible reason
for going back to the States.

422
00:27:35,945 --> 00:27:39,449
So I flew back to DC and I met
with the director of CIA, Leon Panetta,

423
00:27:40,408 --> 00:27:42,327
and he told me about this compound.

424
00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:45,622
And I said, "Look, what I need you to do

425
00:27:45,705 --> 00:27:48,083
is to come up with an operation

426
00:27:48,166 --> 00:27:50,794
to go after this compound."

427
00:27:59,010 --> 00:28:01,471
We're gonna pick
the best people to do the job

428
00:28:01,554 --> 00:28:03,181
for the United States of America.

429
00:28:03,264 --> 00:28:05,392
We're gonna bring the SEALs in
for the mission.

430
00:28:06,935 --> 00:28:09,270
SEAL Team 6 is
the Tier 1 unit in the Navy.

431
00:28:09,938 --> 00:28:13,274
First, we had SEAL Team 1,
SEAL Team 2, and then around 1980,

432
00:28:13,358 --> 00:28:15,652
Commander Richard Marcinko
commissioned SEAL Team 6.

433
00:28:15,735 --> 00:28:19,072
And the reason he named it 6 is
because he knew the Russians would say,

434
00:28:19,155 --> 00:28:21,574
"There's SEAL Team 1, SEAL Team 2,
and there's SEAL Team 6."

435
00:28:21,658 --> 00:28:24,703
"Where the hell are 3, 4, and 5?"
Which is good counterintelligence, right?

436
00:28:24,786 --> 00:28:27,497
I say, "It's not just a hat rack,
my friend. We're thinking."

437
00:28:30,417 --> 00:28:32,627
We'd just gotten back from Afghanistan,

438
00:28:32,711 --> 00:28:33,962
and we're in Miami, Florida,

439
00:28:34,045 --> 00:28:36,423
to do some diving
and get a little bit of liberty

440
00:28:36,506 --> 00:28:38,550
so we can hang out
with the boys on the beach.

441
00:28:41,094 --> 00:28:43,638
We're out there on the patio one night,
and we get a call

442
00:28:43,722 --> 00:28:46,641
that we're being recalled
to Virginia Beach, and we didn't know why.

443
00:28:46,725 --> 00:28:51,312
It was disappointing because the…
the spin-ups never turn into anything.

444
00:28:51,396 --> 00:28:53,189
You just get briefed
on a bunch of nonsense

445
00:28:53,273 --> 00:28:54,858
that doesn't have anything to do with me.

446
00:28:54,941 --> 00:28:56,109
And it just… it sucks, man.

447
00:28:56,192 --> 00:28:59,320
We've been looking forward to Miami
since I was in, uh… in Jalalabad.

448
00:29:01,197 --> 00:29:04,159
When I first brought them in,
I brought them in off leave,

449
00:29:04,242 --> 00:29:07,495
and I could tell from their body language
they weren't happy about this.

450
00:29:07,579 --> 00:29:09,539
They thought they were involved
in an exercise.

451
00:29:10,790 --> 00:29:12,876
We pulled up to a spot
that was unimpressive.

452
00:29:12,959 --> 00:29:15,295
It was like a small schoolhouse,
a one-story building.

453
00:29:15,378 --> 00:29:17,297
Armed guard outside.
We go in and sit down.

454
00:29:17,380 --> 00:29:20,550
And it's simply set up like a classroom.
Like, there's some whiteboards.

455
00:29:21,050 --> 00:29:24,053
We brought 'em into the
briefing room. The CIA briefer comes out.

456
00:29:24,137 --> 00:29:27,056
He explains to them they'll have to sign
these nondisclosure agreements,

457
00:29:27,140 --> 00:29:30,268
which, again, wasn't unusual, because
we did some pretty sensitive training.

458
00:29:31,352 --> 00:29:33,480
When the officer
for the CIA stood up there

459
00:29:33,563 --> 00:29:36,483
and I heard her say the word "Abbottabad…"

460
00:29:36,566 --> 00:29:38,193
And I'd never heard
of the city Abbottabad.

461
00:29:38,276 --> 00:29:39,986
It almost gives me goosebumps right now.

462
00:29:40,069 --> 00:29:43,531
Like, this is a city in
a different country you've never heard of.

463
00:29:44,115 --> 00:29:46,326
Then the commanding officer
of SEAL Team 6 walked up,

464
00:29:46,409 --> 00:29:48,119
as nonchalant as ever, and just said…

465
00:29:48,203 --> 00:29:50,371
"Gentlemen, we're going
after Osama bin Laden."

466
00:29:51,581 --> 00:29:53,541
"This target is Osama bin Laden."

467
00:29:54,167 --> 00:29:55,919
Most wanted terrorist in history.

468
00:29:58,546 --> 00:30:01,841
I thought, "This is the most important
mission in modern history."

469
00:30:02,926 --> 00:30:05,220
"What an honor.
What a great team to be a part of."

470
00:30:05,804 --> 00:30:08,181
One thing they said, though,
was "This is time sensitive."

471
00:30:08,264 --> 00:30:11,559
"We've got a couple weeks
until there's 0% illumination

472
00:30:11,643 --> 00:30:14,354
in the lunar cycle, and we're gonna launch
on one of those two days."

473
00:30:16,648 --> 00:30:18,358
"Gentlemen, this is not an exercise."

474
00:30:18,441 --> 00:30:21,444
"We've got a job to do,
and let's get out and start preparing."

475
00:30:24,864 --> 00:30:27,909
Our job was preparing them
for what they're about to do.

476
00:30:27,992 --> 00:30:30,745
Um, it's giving them the tools
to do what they have to do.

477
00:30:30,829 --> 00:30:33,289
And in this case,
we did something a little bit different.

478
00:30:34,791 --> 00:30:38,711
We determined that we could literally
build the compound as it exists

479
00:30:38,795 --> 00:30:39,963
for them to practice.

480
00:30:40,630 --> 00:30:43,049
The CIA built us a mock-up.

481
00:30:43,132 --> 00:30:46,761
The exterior looked
like Osama bin Laden's compound.

482
00:30:47,470 --> 00:30:50,598
So that we could have
the SEALs come in and rehearse

483
00:30:50,682 --> 00:30:53,017
through their tactical movement
on the objective.

484
00:30:55,186 --> 00:30:57,647
Helicopter pilots
rehearsed their profiles.

485
00:30:57,730 --> 00:31:01,109
SEALs could fast rope down
onto the top of the three-story building

486
00:31:01,192 --> 00:31:02,485
and into the courtyard.

487
00:31:02,986 --> 00:31:06,155
We did that so much over and over,
the wrists are starting to hurt.

488
00:31:06,239 --> 00:31:08,950
You're getting tendinitis.
It was almost to the point where,

489
00:31:09,033 --> 00:31:11,828
"Look, we've proven we can fast rope.
We don't need to keep doing this."

490
00:31:13,037 --> 00:31:15,999
We knew the shape of it.
We knew where the buildings were.

491
00:31:16,791 --> 00:31:19,335
What we didn't know is,
what did it look like inside?

492
00:31:20,295 --> 00:31:22,881
Was it an open space,
or did you walk into a corridor

493
00:31:22,964 --> 00:31:25,091
with a room on the left
and a room on the right?

494
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:28,261
So the structure was modular.

495
00:31:29,929 --> 00:31:31,598
-I'm in.
-Room clear!

496
00:31:31,681 --> 00:31:33,600
It changed every time they went through.

497
00:31:33,683 --> 00:31:34,684
Here.

498
00:31:34,767 --> 00:31:38,021
They were so good about it that they could
break the compound down every single night

499
00:31:38,104 --> 00:31:40,982
just in case enemy satellites
were flying over the top.

500
00:31:46,487 --> 00:31:48,531
The number of times
they did their training

501
00:31:48,615 --> 00:31:50,742
numbers over a hundred.

502
00:31:50,825 --> 00:31:54,704
You plan, and you plan, and you plan,
and you rehearse, and you rehearse,

503
00:31:54,787 --> 00:31:57,540
and you rehearse,
and you look at every single contingency.

504
00:31:57,624 --> 00:31:59,208
Everything that seems simple,

505
00:31:59,292 --> 00:32:01,419
like "Where in the helicopter
are you gonna sit?"

506
00:32:01,502 --> 00:32:04,005
"What are you gonna sit on?
Are you using this kind of a chair?"

507
00:32:04,088 --> 00:32:06,466
"Where does the dog go?
Let's simulate that a car left."

508
00:32:06,549 --> 00:32:08,509
"Let's simulate
the fast rope didn't work."

509
00:32:08,593 --> 00:32:10,720
"What happens if this guy gets shot?"

510
00:32:10,803 --> 00:32:12,430
"What happens if this room blows up?"

511
00:32:12,513 --> 00:32:15,975
"What happens if we're down
from 24 guys to 12 guys?"

512
00:32:17,185 --> 00:32:20,104
I can tell you they destroyed things
that had to be fixed.

513
00:32:20,188 --> 00:32:21,773
Back out!

514
00:32:24,150 --> 00:32:26,945
And we would then go back in
and… and rebuild that.

515
00:32:28,529 --> 00:32:30,657
"What did we do good? What did we do bad?"

516
00:32:30,740 --> 00:32:33,868
Twelve hours a day, maybe longer
than that, rehearsing and planning.

517
00:32:33,952 --> 00:32:36,371
Then, we'd go back to the barracks
where we were staying,

518
00:32:36,454 --> 00:32:39,123
and we'd stand around the model,
and we'd talk about it.

519
00:32:39,207 --> 00:32:41,334
"Was there gonna be
some sort of ridiculous contraption

520
00:32:41,417 --> 00:32:44,420
with a slide that comes out
of the top floor into the alley?"

521
00:32:44,504 --> 00:32:46,589
"Can someone
climb out of the sewage system?"

522
00:32:46,673 --> 00:32:48,341
And one night, one of the bosses said,

523
00:32:48,424 --> 00:32:50,385
"What's the worst thing
that could happen?"

524
00:32:50,468 --> 00:32:51,803
The youngest guy in the room said,

525
00:32:51,886 --> 00:32:53,888
"The helicopter could crash
in the front yard."

526
00:32:54,889 --> 00:32:56,933
And we're kind of
looking at him like, "Wh…

527
00:32:57,016 --> 00:32:58,685
"Why would you jinx us like that?"

528
00:33:03,147 --> 00:33:06,234
The main staging base for the operation

529
00:33:06,317 --> 00:33:09,445
was in Jalalabad,
on the Afghanistan side of the border.

530
00:33:09,529 --> 00:33:14,784
Between those 350 kilometers
are all kinds of problems.

531
00:33:14,867 --> 00:33:18,955
Risks were significant.
You're flying in Pakistani airspace.

532
00:33:19,455 --> 00:33:24,293
The compound was right near Pakistan's
West Point, its military academy,

533
00:33:24,377 --> 00:33:27,171
and other important
military installations.

534
00:33:27,714 --> 00:33:31,801
So they were training military officers
there in Abbottabad.

535
00:33:32,969 --> 00:33:36,764
A lot of care must be taken
because, if a threat is detected,

536
00:33:36,848 --> 00:33:38,433
who knows what they will do?

537
00:33:39,976 --> 00:33:43,646
President Obama was clear that
we're not going to inform the Pakistanis,

538
00:33:43,730 --> 00:33:47,900
because Pakistani intelligence has worked
both sides of the fence for many years,

539
00:33:47,984 --> 00:33:50,278
and they had relationships

540
00:33:50,361 --> 00:33:52,864
with a lot of the militant
terrorist groups in the area,

541
00:33:52,947 --> 00:33:54,782
including with al-Qaida.

542
00:33:54,866 --> 00:33:57,994
And so we could be in a war with Pakistan.

543
00:33:58,578 --> 00:34:01,581
With an army, special forces,
an intelligence service, an air force,

544
00:34:01,664 --> 00:34:04,042
an armored force, nuclear weapons.

545
00:34:04,667 --> 00:34:07,587
Can we get those 162 miles undetected?

546
00:34:07,670 --> 00:34:10,882
So we take a look at where
all the Pakistani radar systems are,

547
00:34:10,965 --> 00:34:14,510
and what the swath of the radar looks
like, and you're gonna try to avoid that.

548
00:34:15,136 --> 00:34:18,431
There were so many variables
flying into Pakistan.

549
00:34:18,514 --> 00:34:21,726
From getting shot down on the way in
to getting shot down on the way out.

550
00:34:21,809 --> 00:34:24,228
Even joking around,
I remember talking to guys like,

551
00:34:24,312 --> 00:34:26,939
"We need to take this more serious.
This is a one-way mission."

552
00:34:27,565 --> 00:34:31,569
"We're not comin' back from this.
This is the last mission we're gonna do."

553
00:34:33,404 --> 00:34:36,908
And then we walked around a corner
in a hangar, and we saw these helicopters.

554
00:34:38,326 --> 00:34:42,830
We had two classified forms of helicopters

555
00:34:42,914 --> 00:34:46,042
that were harder to detect by radar.

556
00:34:46,125 --> 00:34:48,461
We were kind of laughing.
I remember the conversation was,

557
00:34:48,544 --> 00:34:51,964
"Well, our chances of surviving
increased just now

558
00:34:52,048 --> 00:34:55,426
because, you know, we didn't know
we were going to war on Transformers."

559
00:34:56,511 --> 00:34:59,138
This would be the first mission
with these new helicopters.

560
00:34:59,639 --> 00:35:02,850
I'm not sure how much testing they'd done,
but we knew we had serious technology.

561
00:35:03,518 --> 00:35:06,813
All these operations are very scary.
It's why we bring machine guns.

562
00:35:07,730 --> 00:35:10,149
It's very high risk,
it's extremely dangerous,

563
00:35:10,233 --> 00:35:11,526
and it has to work.

564
00:35:16,948 --> 00:35:18,783
Admiral McRaven came up with the idea

565
00:35:18,866 --> 00:35:21,744
that "We're gonna send you guys
to Jalalabad, Afghanistan,

566
00:35:21,828 --> 00:35:23,204
in case you get a green light."

567
00:35:23,287 --> 00:35:24,747
"You'll be ready to rock and roll."

568
00:35:28,626 --> 00:35:30,753
It was always hard
to say goodbye to the kids.

569
00:35:30,837 --> 00:35:35,591
And unfortunately, being a SEAL Team 6,
that was something we were used to.

570
00:35:37,552 --> 00:35:39,428
That's just something I did with my kids.

571
00:35:39,512 --> 00:35:42,390
From the time they were babies
till the time that I left the Navy,

572
00:35:42,473 --> 00:35:44,934
you gotta say goodbye.
You gotta rip the Band-Aid off,

573
00:35:45,017 --> 00:35:47,436
and at some point,
you just gotta give them that last kiss,

574
00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:49,272
turn around, and that's it.

575
00:35:56,154 --> 00:35:59,740
Did they know you were
saying goodbye and you may not come back?

576
00:35:59,824 --> 00:36:01,576
Yeah, they were smart enough to know,

577
00:36:01,659 --> 00:36:04,787
and they had friends that their dads
never did come home, so they knew.

578
00:36:23,181 --> 00:36:28,311
The moment came
to brief the National Security Council.

579
00:36:30,354 --> 00:36:31,939
I know Obama very well.

580
00:36:32,023 --> 00:36:35,985
That was kind of one of my jobs,
was to be the guy that knew Obama.

581
00:36:36,068 --> 00:36:37,778
You could kind of feel his body language,

582
00:36:37,862 --> 00:36:42,116
like he was going to be
taking a gamble on this, you know?

583
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:44,911
He was so dialed in to this whole thing.

584
00:36:45,912 --> 00:36:48,956
The president polled all of the principals

585
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:51,918
about whether they thought
we should go ahead with the raid or not.

586
00:36:53,336 --> 00:36:54,587
A lot of mixed views.

587
00:36:55,171 --> 00:36:56,964
A lot of people raised questions.

588
00:36:58,424 --> 00:37:00,801
Secretary Clinton
came out in support of it.

589
00:37:00,885 --> 00:37:03,346
Jim Clapper,
the Director of National Intelligence,

590
00:37:03,429 --> 00:37:05,890
and I were very supportive of it as well.

591
00:37:06,474 --> 00:37:10,311
When it got to me, I just said,
"Yeah, you always said you'd do this."

592
00:37:10,394 --> 00:37:13,439
But there were a lot of arguments
against it.

593
00:37:14,982 --> 00:37:16,484
The vice president voted no.

594
00:37:17,068 --> 00:37:19,320
He did not think
the intelligence was good enough,

595
00:37:19,403 --> 00:37:23,824
and he was concerned about
the impact on US-Pakistani relations.

596
00:37:25,034 --> 00:37:27,411
And Bob Gates, the Secretary of Defense,

597
00:37:27,495 --> 00:37:30,665
was concerned
about the safety of the force.

598
00:37:30,748 --> 00:37:34,877
Bob Gates, who was in the
US government when we did Desert One,

599
00:37:34,961 --> 00:37:40,716
his opposition to doing the raid
was a Desert One-style helicopter crash.

600
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:44,470
So, Gates said this, and I was like,
"Oh God, don't say it out loud,"

601
00:37:44,553 --> 00:37:48,683
because what if that happened and then
these meetings all get out, right?

602
00:37:48,766 --> 00:37:50,977
Look, I'm just here talking to you.
Like, you know.

603
00:37:51,060 --> 00:37:53,396
It would have gotten out
that, you know, someone raised this,

604
00:37:53,479 --> 00:37:56,482
and "Oh my God,
you know, uh, Obama ignored it."

605
00:37:59,527 --> 00:38:01,612
The president listened to all of that,

606
00:38:02,655 --> 00:38:05,157
but said,
"Let me take it into consideration."

607
00:38:07,201 --> 00:38:10,955
President Obama said
that he would make a final decision

608
00:38:11,580 --> 00:38:13,791
and wanted
to think about it more overnight.

609
00:38:30,725 --> 00:38:32,768
The next morning,
I remember it very clearly,

610
00:38:32,852 --> 00:38:34,186
I was at headquarters,

611
00:38:35,980 --> 00:38:39,358
and Tom Donilon,
the National Security Advisor, called me,

612
00:38:40,401 --> 00:38:43,654
said, "The president's decided
to go with the mission."

613
00:38:43,738 --> 00:38:45,364
This is a big bet.

614
00:38:45,448 --> 00:38:47,658
We're betting that bin Laden's there,

615
00:38:47,742 --> 00:38:50,244
and we're betting
that we can pull this off,

616
00:38:50,328 --> 00:38:53,873
but this is the best shot we…
we're ever gonna have on bin Laden.

617
00:38:53,956 --> 00:38:55,916
Yes. Let's go.

618
00:39:06,886 --> 00:39:09,722
24 hours before the raid itself,

619
00:39:10,890 --> 00:39:13,642
there was a major event in Washington,

620
00:39:14,268 --> 00:39:16,604
the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

621
00:39:18,230 --> 00:39:20,983
And so we all decided
that we would show up,

622
00:39:21,067 --> 00:39:24,278
otherwise, if we didn't,
questions would be raised.

623
00:39:24,362 --> 00:39:27,573
Going to the White House
Correspondents' Dinner that night

624
00:39:27,656 --> 00:39:30,159
was one of the strangest experiences
in my life.

625
00:39:30,242 --> 00:39:32,078
The President of the United States.

626
00:39:35,498 --> 00:39:39,210
People who were involved
in this, from the president on down,

627
00:39:39,293 --> 00:39:42,588
understood the importance of secrecy.

628
00:39:44,757 --> 00:39:46,842
And so
the Correspondents' Dinner, I think,

629
00:39:46,926 --> 00:39:49,095
was in some respects a good cover…

630
00:39:49,178 --> 00:39:51,013
…because it was business as usual.

631
00:39:51,097 --> 00:39:55,351
It's wonderful to be here
at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

632
00:39:56,268 --> 00:39:57,645
-Whoo!
-What a week.

633
00:40:00,523 --> 00:40:02,066
It was difficult.

634
00:40:02,566 --> 00:40:05,403
I had tremendous respect for his ability

635
00:40:05,486 --> 00:40:07,863
to basically play the part…

636
00:40:08,489 --> 00:40:10,282
…of President of the United States.

637
00:40:10,366 --> 00:40:13,411
It's good to be back
with so many esteemed guests,

638
00:40:14,036 --> 00:40:15,996
essential government employees…

639
00:40:17,456 --> 00:40:19,750
Non-essential government employees.

640
00:40:19,834 --> 00:40:21,001
You know who you are.

641
00:40:21,085 --> 00:40:25,172
And then a comedian got up
and made jokes about the bin Laden issue.

642
00:40:25,881 --> 00:40:28,426
People think bin Laden
is hiding in the Hindu Kush,

643
00:40:28,509 --> 00:40:30,511
but did you know that every day,
from four to five,

644
00:40:30,594 --> 00:40:32,680
he hosts a show on C-SPAN?

645
00:40:36,058 --> 00:40:37,143
Everybody laughed.

646
00:40:37,726 --> 00:40:40,354
And we all kind of deep down thought,

647
00:40:40,855 --> 00:40:42,148
"If only you knew

648
00:40:43,732 --> 00:40:44,775
what I knew."

649
00:40:45,985 --> 00:40:48,195
And what was gonna happen the next day.

650
00:40:48,988 --> 00:40:51,824
The most classified operation

651
00:40:53,367 --> 00:40:55,035
in the last 20 years.

652
00:40:55,119 --> 00:40:57,496
Thank you and good night.

653
00:41:14,346 --> 00:41:17,766
The next morning was
Sunday morning, so I went to Mass,

654
00:41:18,767 --> 00:41:21,187
and used that opportunity
to pray a great deal

655
00:41:21,270 --> 00:41:24,315
about what was gonna happen that day.

656
00:41:25,274 --> 00:41:27,693
Prayed that, hopefully,
we'd be successful.

657
00:41:29,778 --> 00:41:33,240
I left church
and went directly to the CIA.

658
00:41:38,162 --> 00:41:40,331
The day of the raid. It's time.

659
00:41:40,956 --> 00:41:43,459
A lot of the preparations
in the Counterterrorism Center

660
00:41:43,542 --> 00:41:45,836
in the United States were made in silence.

661
00:41:46,587 --> 00:41:47,505
We were all on edge.

662
00:41:48,589 --> 00:41:52,134
My role for this
was to be a communication relay.

663
00:41:53,469 --> 00:41:55,429
Tina was in the cubicle next to me.

664
00:41:56,180 --> 00:41:58,182
I didn't sleep the night before.

665
00:41:58,265 --> 00:41:59,892
It was tremendous pressure.

666
00:42:00,851 --> 00:42:04,230
It was the first time
that I felt a shade of doubt.

667
00:42:05,272 --> 00:42:08,984
Having worked this lead
and we're now sending troops

668
00:42:09,068 --> 00:42:10,778
potentially in harm's way,

669
00:42:10,861 --> 00:42:12,780
all of us felt a responsibility.

670
00:42:14,073 --> 00:42:16,534
It all became much more real.

671
00:42:20,412 --> 00:42:23,624
We were either going to have
an incredible success

672
00:42:23,707 --> 00:42:25,209
or a horrible failure.

673
00:42:26,919 --> 00:42:28,462
The SEALs were family men.

674
00:42:28,963 --> 00:42:31,924
My job was to make sure
I put them in a position to be successful.

675
00:42:32,007 --> 00:42:33,884
And that's all I was worried about.

676
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:39,056
We'd done the things with
the wills, with the powers of attorney,

677
00:42:39,139 --> 00:42:41,600
to make sure your family's
taken care of in the event you die.

678
00:42:41,684 --> 00:42:44,520
But this mission is one
where we're probably not gonna make it,

679
00:42:44,603 --> 00:42:47,356
so I need to handwrite
letters to everyone.

680
00:42:47,439 --> 00:42:51,652
And I remember handwriting letters
to my kids, and it was more of, um…

681
00:42:52,403 --> 00:42:55,864
"I'm sorry that I wasn't there for this,"
with tears hitting the page.

682
00:43:03,372 --> 00:43:05,708
I got to the White House very early.

683
00:43:05,791 --> 00:43:08,460
During the weekend, you will have
individuals coming in for tours.

684
00:43:09,670 --> 00:43:11,714
But we canceled each of them

685
00:43:11,797 --> 00:43:14,675
because it would have sparked
a lot of concern

686
00:43:14,758 --> 00:43:16,260
if people walking through the halls

687
00:43:16,343 --> 00:43:19,388
saw a lot of senior officials
coming in on a Sunday.

688
00:43:21,682 --> 00:43:24,768
Many of us convened
in the White House Situation Room early.

689
00:43:25,352 --> 00:43:28,147
You're anxious.
You're… you're worried. You're nervous.

690
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:32,735
It really had the feel
of a command center.

691
00:43:32,818 --> 00:43:35,029
Obama's sitting at the head of the table.

692
00:43:35,112 --> 00:43:36,447
Then he's got, basically,

693
00:43:36,530 --> 00:43:39,116
his senior cabinet-level people
sitting around the table.

694
00:43:39,199 --> 00:43:41,410
Bob Gates, Hillary Clinton.

695
00:43:41,493 --> 00:43:43,996
You had Leon Panetta on one screen.

696
00:43:44,079 --> 00:43:47,666
He's at the CIA in kind of
their version of a situation room

697
00:43:47,750 --> 00:43:48,834
with a bunch of people.

698
00:43:48,917 --> 00:43:52,880
And then on the other screen
is Admiral McRaven, who's in Jalalabad.

699
00:43:55,174 --> 00:43:58,552
It was tremendous anticipation.

700
00:44:00,638 --> 00:44:03,474
The commander in chief,
he's the one who gave the order.

701
00:44:03,557 --> 00:44:05,893
He's the one who had the most on the line.

702
00:44:07,394 --> 00:44:10,189
There's a look on his face.
It is, like, really intense.

703
00:44:10,272 --> 00:44:12,107
But you could tell
he was a little nervous too.

704
00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:22,743
We have connectivity
with Admiral McRaven in Jalalabad,

705
00:44:23,327 --> 00:44:24,912
which is where he is.

706
00:44:30,668 --> 00:44:32,503
I didn't get a lot of sleep before.

707
00:44:33,587 --> 00:44:37,716
This was a potentially historic moment.
I just didn't want anything to go wrong.

708
00:44:39,885 --> 00:44:42,805
I had told the guys, "Okay, we got
a job to do. Let's go get the job done."

709
00:44:44,139 --> 00:44:47,810
Bin Laden's code name is Geronimo.
That was agreed to in advance.

710
00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:52,981
There is so much tension
that something could go wrong.

711
00:44:53,607 --> 00:44:55,859
And what if bin Laden is not there?

712
00:44:59,029 --> 00:45:03,075
I remember the call out
that the helos were launched and thinking,

713
00:45:03,951 --> 00:45:04,868
"Here we go."

714
00:45:09,540 --> 00:45:12,835
No one's ever flown in these before.
How do I keep my mind off it?

715
00:45:12,918 --> 00:45:15,254
"Think of something simple.
I know how to count. I'll count."

716
00:45:15,337 --> 00:45:17,589
"One, two, three, four."

717
00:45:19,091 --> 00:45:20,384
So I'm counting.

718
00:45:20,467 --> 00:45:22,886
And then around 557,
I just remember saying,

719
00:45:23,470 --> 00:45:25,889
"Freedom itself was attacked this morning
by a faceless coward,

720
00:45:25,973 --> 00:45:27,808
and freedom will be defended."

721
00:45:27,891 --> 00:45:30,936
That's what President Bush said on 9/11.
I don't know how I remembered that.

722
00:45:31,019 --> 00:45:33,397
But I'm like, "Forget counting.
I'm gonna say that again."

723
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:35,941
"Freedom itself was attacked this morning
by a faceless coward,

724
00:45:36,024 --> 00:45:37,234
and freedom will be defended."

725
00:45:37,317 --> 00:45:40,404
That's when it's like,
"All right, I'm on this mission."

726
00:45:40,904 --> 00:45:43,532
"This is the team,
and we're gonna kill him."

727
00:45:46,702 --> 00:45:49,037
They leave Jalalabad,

728
00:45:49,830 --> 00:45:53,333
and there's a period of time
where they're flying in Afghan airspace,

729
00:45:53,417 --> 00:45:54,752
and you're breathing easy.

730
00:45:57,045 --> 00:46:00,090
And then there's a moment
when they cross the border into Pakistan,

731
00:46:00,883 --> 00:46:02,718
and your worry level goes way up.

732
00:46:03,844 --> 00:46:06,180
When does the Pakistani military
detect them?

733
00:46:08,974 --> 00:46:12,269
The Pakistanis
had shot at us before, a number of times.

734
00:46:13,687 --> 00:46:16,857
There was no doubt in my mind that if
the Pakistanis picked up the helicopters

735
00:46:16,940 --> 00:46:20,235
and they thought it was a US force
coming in, they would engage us.

736
00:46:20,986 --> 00:46:23,947
It was so tense.
We were listening very closely

737
00:46:24,031 --> 00:46:26,909
to see if there's any indication
that they'd been detected.

738
00:46:29,536 --> 00:46:31,663
And now, we're at a point where

739
00:46:31,747 --> 00:46:33,791
this is where we find out
if the technology works.

740
00:46:36,335 --> 00:46:40,547
While these guys are in the air
for this hour-plus helicopter ride

741
00:46:40,631 --> 00:46:42,257
in Pakistani airspace,

742
00:46:42,341 --> 00:46:45,219
there's this kind of interregnum
sitting in a room in Washington

743
00:46:45,302 --> 00:46:47,012
because there's literally nothing to do.

744
00:46:47,805 --> 00:46:51,016
So Obama takes a break.
He says, like, "I'm gonna go upstairs."

745
00:46:51,099 --> 00:46:54,561
You know, "Let me know
when I need to come back," basically.

746
00:46:54,645 --> 00:46:56,063
He goes up there to play cards.

747
00:46:56,146 --> 00:46:59,650
He compulsively played spades
when he… he was nervous

748
00:46:59,733 --> 00:47:01,819
or just needed to distract himself.

749
00:47:02,569 --> 00:47:05,656
We're all just kind of sitting around, and

750
00:47:06,532 --> 00:47:08,700
we started to just chat about 9/11.

751
00:47:09,952 --> 00:47:11,578
People standing up, drinking coffee, like,

752
00:47:11,662 --> 00:47:13,789
"Yeah, you know,
this is what I was doing, and…"

753
00:47:15,707 --> 00:47:18,877
There was this natural reversion
to that day.

754
00:47:23,465 --> 00:47:25,717
You realize that, kind of,
we were all somehow

755
00:47:26,844 --> 00:47:29,137
there because of bin Laden.

756
00:47:30,305 --> 00:47:31,682
And then Obama comes back,

757
00:47:32,266 --> 00:47:34,643
and right across the hall,

758
00:47:34,726 --> 00:47:38,355
there's a small conference room
with a general monitoring this operation.

759
00:47:39,731 --> 00:47:41,775
And Obama, he goes in there,

760
00:47:41,859 --> 00:47:45,028
and so then,
everybody kind of starts to fill in

761
00:47:45,112 --> 00:47:46,905
to this tiny little conference room.

762
00:47:48,365 --> 00:47:50,784
And McRaven
basically just starts narrating.

763
00:47:50,868 --> 00:47:53,704
He's the… the voice of God
for this whole operation.

764
00:47:54,955 --> 00:47:58,125
A real anxious moment
was about two minutes out from the target.

765
00:47:59,251 --> 00:48:01,545
That was a huge point of vulnerability,

766
00:48:01,628 --> 00:48:04,965
because the Pakistani West Point
was in close proximity,

767
00:48:05,465 --> 00:48:08,844
and it was a couple of miles
from the major infantry battalion.

768
00:48:09,428 --> 00:48:13,765
So we could have hundreds of soldiers
attack the SEALs.

769
00:48:14,308 --> 00:48:16,810
We would be surrounded by Pakistanis.

770
00:48:17,728 --> 00:48:20,397
The president was very clear that,
if you get in that situation,

771
00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:22,149
be prepared to fight your way out.

772
00:48:24,026 --> 00:48:28,030
We didn't want to have
some type of hostage situation

773
00:48:28,113 --> 00:48:30,824
of our forces being held
by the Pakistanis.

774
00:48:32,492 --> 00:48:35,954
The air crew guy reaches over,
and he opens the door.

775
00:48:36,455 --> 00:48:39,458
We're looking out the window,
two minutes away from bin Laden's house.

776
00:48:39,541 --> 00:48:42,461
We're not in a training area anymore.
This place has electricity.

777
00:48:42,544 --> 00:48:44,671
We're in a resort part of Pakistan.

778
00:48:47,132 --> 00:48:49,301
The perfect plan is,
they'll hover, we'll drop guys off.

779
00:48:49,384 --> 00:48:51,428
My team's going to the roof.
We'll hit 'em like this.

780
00:48:51,511 --> 00:48:54,222
That's the perfect plan,
and that's when all hell broke loose.

781
00:48:59,728 --> 00:49:03,482
As the helicopters
were settling over the compound…

782
00:49:05,943 --> 00:49:08,487
one of the helicopters,
it… it kind of quivered.

783
00:49:09,988 --> 00:49:11,823
It falls hard.

784
00:49:14,117 --> 00:49:15,118
It crashes.

785
00:49:17,663 --> 00:49:19,206
It's that moment when

786
00:49:20,290 --> 00:49:22,501
your stomach comes up to your mouth.

787
00:49:24,211 --> 00:49:26,171
I was only a few feet away from Obama.

788
00:49:27,255 --> 00:49:30,926
He had this look
of profound shock and concern.

789
00:49:31,009 --> 00:49:33,387
It was like,
"Oh. The Desert One thing is happening."

790
00:49:33,470 --> 00:49:36,556
I thought, "Oh my God,
we may have lost people

791
00:49:36,640 --> 00:49:39,351
as a result of… of this lead
that we've been pursuing."

792
00:49:39,434 --> 00:49:42,646
Everyone's on pins and needles
waiting and waiting

793
00:49:42,729 --> 00:49:44,815
to see if there was going to be
any type of response.

794
00:49:45,899 --> 00:49:48,986
Ultimately, the people in the neighborhood
are responding. Lights are coming on.

795
00:49:50,946 --> 00:49:51,989
And in that moment,

796
00:49:52,072 --> 00:49:54,741
the operation was compromised
on social media.

797
00:49:56,618 --> 00:49:58,870
A lot of people knew a helicopter crashed.

798
00:50:00,664 --> 00:50:02,207
They didn't know it was American.

799
00:50:02,290 --> 00:50:04,334
They assumed it to be
a Pakistani helicopter.

800
00:50:09,339 --> 00:50:11,717
From a counterintelligence perspective,
that's a fail.

801
00:50:12,467 --> 00:50:15,053
That's an indicator and a warning also
for Pakistani intelligence.

802
00:50:17,222 --> 00:50:20,100
You could see the mission in danger.

803
00:50:22,102 --> 00:50:24,896
I said to Bill McRaven,
"What the hell's going on?"

804
00:50:25,647 --> 00:50:26,773
I knew the guys were okay.

805
00:50:26,857 --> 00:50:28,984
I could see them
getting out of the helicopter quickly.

806
00:50:29,067 --> 00:50:31,111
But what happened was,
when the helicopter came in,

807
00:50:31,194 --> 00:50:35,157
the down blast from that helicopter
hit that 18-foot-high wall

808
00:50:35,240 --> 00:50:38,201
and created a vortex,
and the helicopter lost lift.

809
00:50:38,285 --> 00:50:41,663
Swings over and then hard lands
into the animal pen.

810
00:50:42,164 --> 00:50:46,710
Bill didn't miss a beat. He said,
"I've called in a backup helicopter."

811
00:50:46,793 --> 00:50:50,589
"We're gonna breach through the walls.
We're gonna continue the mission."

812
00:50:50,672 --> 00:50:54,092
And I said, "God bless you. Let's do it."

813
00:50:56,011 --> 00:50:58,346
The guys moved from the downed helicopter.

814
00:50:59,681 --> 00:51:02,184
The second helicopter comes in
immediately after that.

815
00:51:02,684 --> 00:51:04,811
I didn't know
the first helicopter had an issue.

816
00:51:05,729 --> 00:51:09,316
My team is supposed to drop some guys off,
and then my team's going to the rooftop.

817
00:51:09,399 --> 00:51:11,193
So we drop our guys off,
just like in training.

818
00:51:11,276 --> 00:51:13,070
We lift up, and then go right back down.

819
00:51:14,362 --> 00:51:17,324
The second helicopter,
the pilot didn't know what had happened.

820
00:51:17,407 --> 00:51:20,786
So to be cautious… He didn't know
whether they had taken gunfire.

821
00:51:20,869 --> 00:51:23,914
So he… he lands outside the compound.

822
00:51:23,997 --> 00:51:27,375
And so the pilot is telling us to get out.

823
00:51:28,502 --> 00:51:31,630
Well, now the guys aren't
anywhere where they're supposed to be,

824
00:51:31,713 --> 00:51:32,672
based on plan A.

825
00:51:33,715 --> 00:51:35,050
I'm to be on the roof.

826
00:51:35,133 --> 00:51:38,553
And I remember thinking, "Okay.
I guess we just start the war from here."

827
00:51:38,637 --> 00:51:41,973
The good news is we had plan B,
plan C, and plan D.

828
00:51:46,728 --> 00:51:48,563
They're trying to get in the compound.

829
00:51:48,647 --> 00:51:52,484
On the outside wall,
there was what appeared to be a door.

830
00:51:52,984 --> 00:51:56,780
So as I'm watching,
a demolition charge goes against the door.

831
00:51:56,863 --> 00:51:58,782
I see the explosion…

832
00:52:01,243 --> 00:52:02,619
But they're not moving.

833
00:52:02,702 --> 00:52:06,915
Turns out there is a false door
on this four-foot concrete wall.

834
00:52:07,499 --> 00:52:10,877
He looked back and goes,
"All right, failed breach, this is bad."

835
00:52:11,419 --> 00:52:14,673
And I said, "No, this is good.
That's a fake door."

836
00:52:15,382 --> 00:52:17,634
"Nobody does that. He's in there."

837
00:52:19,344 --> 00:52:21,763
We know that the carport off to our right,

838
00:52:21,847 --> 00:52:24,224
that definitely opens 'cause
we've seen cars come in and out.

839
00:52:24,307 --> 00:52:25,433
We'll just go blow that door.

840
00:52:26,810 --> 00:52:29,396
So I came over the radio.
"Failed breach, northeast corner."

841
00:52:29,479 --> 00:52:31,022
"We're gonna blast the carport."

842
00:52:33,525 --> 00:52:35,986
And somebody said, "No, no, no.
Don't blast it. We'll open it."

843
00:52:36,069 --> 00:52:37,946
And so the door opens,

844
00:52:38,029 --> 00:52:41,658
and a glove came out
with a thumb that I recognize.

845
00:52:42,659 --> 00:52:43,869
We walk in there.

846
00:52:47,205 --> 00:52:48,874
Then, within a few minutes,

847
00:52:48,957 --> 00:52:52,210
everybody is inside the main area
of the compound.

848
00:52:54,087 --> 00:52:56,882
It's dark.
Guys got night vision goggles on.

849
00:52:56,965 --> 00:52:58,967
Clearly, the adrenaline is pumping.

850
00:53:00,260 --> 00:53:04,055
You could see the laser target designators
on their guns. You could see them moving.

851
00:53:05,348 --> 00:53:08,935
You could see the guys
sweeping the compound looking for threats.

852
00:53:12,189 --> 00:53:15,233
And then, you know, I could see
guys enter the three-story building.

853
00:53:15,817 --> 00:53:17,861
And then that's all I could see.

854
00:53:26,786 --> 00:53:29,748
There is so much tension.

855
00:53:29,831 --> 00:53:32,042
God knows
what the hell's gonna happen now.

856
00:53:32,125 --> 00:53:36,630
This is the moment
when everything you've planned,

857
00:53:36,713 --> 00:53:39,382
everything that you've hoped for

858
00:53:39,466 --> 00:53:42,385
in terms of being able to get bin Laden,

859
00:53:42,469 --> 00:53:45,931
is on the line in the next 20 minutes.

860
00:53:47,057 --> 00:53:50,936
It's gonna tell you whether or not
this is a success or a failure.

861
00:53:53,647 --> 00:53:55,899
There was 20 minutes of silence.

862
00:53:57,734 --> 00:53:59,986
Probably the longest 20 minutes
of my life.

863
00:54:09,454 --> 00:54:12,707
During those 20 minutes,
the SEALs on the ground…

864
00:54:18,255 --> 00:54:19,756
…first ran into Abu Ahmed,

865
00:54:19,839 --> 00:54:22,384
and they shot and killed him.

866
00:54:25,303 --> 00:54:28,139
So then we get
in this house on the first floor,

867
00:54:28,223 --> 00:54:32,644
and one of my guys
shot one of the couriers and his wife.

868
00:54:34,521 --> 00:54:36,314
She jumped in front of him.

869
00:54:36,398 --> 00:54:39,526
The women are effectively
turning into human shields.

870
00:54:39,609 --> 00:54:41,903
That's another indicator. He's here.

871
00:54:43,029 --> 00:54:46,032
We're going up the stairs.
We run across locked doors,

872
00:54:46,574 --> 00:54:50,495
called the breacher up,
and the breacher blasted that door.

873
00:54:50,578 --> 00:54:53,206
So I'm about six guys back
on what we call a train,

874
00:54:53,290 --> 00:54:54,958
and we're moving up the stairs.

875
00:54:55,583 --> 00:54:59,462
The guy in front saw bin Laden's
20-year-old son, Khalid bin Laden.

876
00:55:00,547 --> 00:55:02,757
Khalid jumped behind a banister.

877
00:55:02,841 --> 00:55:03,967
The guy in front,

878
00:55:04,050 --> 00:55:06,428
I heard him whisper a few things
to Khalid to confuse him.

879
00:55:06,511 --> 00:55:08,972
Come here. Come here.

880
00:55:09,055 --> 00:55:11,349
He said, "Come here, come here,"
in two different languages,

881
00:55:11,433 --> 00:55:13,727
and it confused Khalid,
and Khalid kind of came out…

882
00:55:15,729 --> 00:55:17,272
And then he shot him and killed him.

883
00:55:19,649 --> 00:55:22,152
So we're on the second floor,
and we wanna go to the third floor.

884
00:55:22,235 --> 00:55:23,611
That's where bin Laden's gonna be.

885
00:55:23,695 --> 00:55:27,324
But we need to clear that second floor
before we start moving.

886
00:55:27,824 --> 00:55:29,576
The guys start to peel off.

887
00:55:29,659 --> 00:55:32,537
So they're all moving out in front of me,
and now I'm the last guy,

888
00:55:32,620 --> 00:55:34,164
which turns me into the number two man.

889
00:55:35,582 --> 00:55:37,584
So the one man's job
is to point up the stairs,

890
00:55:37,667 --> 00:55:39,878
the two man's job
is to tell him when we have enough guys.

891
00:55:42,130 --> 00:55:44,507
I want four guys, and I'm lookin' around.

892
00:55:45,342 --> 00:55:48,094
We had 23 dudes on the ground,
several different houses,

893
00:55:48,178 --> 00:55:49,220
several different stories.

894
00:55:49,304 --> 00:55:51,806
You're gonna run outta guys,
and we just did. We were down to two.

895
00:55:55,226 --> 00:55:57,687
There's a curtain above
the stairs to the third floor,

896
00:55:57,771 --> 00:56:01,524
and there are people moving behind it,
and the number one man can see 'em.

897
00:56:02,025 --> 00:56:06,154
He's like, "They could be suicide bombers,
but we can beat 'em, but we gotta go now."

898
00:56:07,280 --> 00:56:10,325
"Okay. We're gonna go meet a suicide
bomber. I'm tired of thinking about it."

899
00:56:10,408 --> 00:56:12,911
"Let's get it over with." I squeeze
him and we went up the stairs.

900
00:56:17,749 --> 00:56:19,709
So we went up to the top of the stairs.

901
00:56:19,793 --> 00:56:23,129
And the number one man opened
this curtain. People standing there.

902
00:56:24,631 --> 00:56:26,257
He tackled them.

903
00:56:26,341 --> 00:56:27,675
He's gonna take the blast.

904
00:56:27,759 --> 00:56:30,095
So because he went this way,
I turned this way,

905
00:56:30,178 --> 00:56:33,890
and standing in front of me,
two feet away, is Osama bin Laden.

906
00:56:36,851 --> 00:56:39,312
It was one of those moments in life
where it did slow down.

907
00:56:43,316 --> 00:56:45,693
He's taller than I thought.
He's skinnier than I thought.

908
00:56:45,777 --> 00:56:50,198
His beard was gray, white,
but I recognized his nose.

909
00:56:51,241 --> 00:56:52,700
This is definitely him.

910
00:56:53,326 --> 00:56:54,702
He's not surrendering.

911
00:56:55,286 --> 00:56:57,664
He's a threat, not just to me,
but my entire team.

912
00:56:59,290 --> 00:57:00,333
He has to die.

913
00:57:14,722 --> 00:57:17,600
As time went by, it was so tense.

914
00:57:19,352 --> 00:57:22,647
We were waiting and waiting to hear
any type of response.

915
00:57:24,524 --> 00:57:27,360
There was hushed silence,

916
00:57:27,444 --> 00:57:28,778
waiting to hear.

917
00:57:29,404 --> 00:57:33,783
Uh, in some respects, it reminded me
of a waiting room of a hospital

918
00:57:33,867 --> 00:57:36,035
when somebody is going to give birth.

919
00:57:36,536 --> 00:57:39,038
You know, you're anticipating.
You're worried.

920
00:57:42,625 --> 00:57:44,544
It was a long 19 minutes.

921
00:57:45,962 --> 00:57:48,673
And then I get the call
from the ground force commander.

922
00:57:48,756 --> 00:57:51,092
The ground force commander
said over his radio,

923
00:57:51,176 --> 00:57:53,803
"For God and country,
Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo."

924
00:57:53,887 --> 00:57:54,888
"We got him."

925
00:57:58,308 --> 00:57:59,976
We know that means

926
00:58:00,810 --> 00:58:04,272
Osama bin Laden has been killed
by US forces.

927
00:58:05,106 --> 00:58:09,068
It's like, "Holy shit." And, like, I just…
Like, nobody really says anything.

928
00:58:11,362 --> 00:58:13,448
There was no applauding.

929
00:58:14,282 --> 00:58:16,618
It was a very, very silent room.

930
00:58:19,370 --> 00:58:23,208
The silence is broken by Obama,
who didn't move from this chair,

931
00:58:23,708 --> 00:58:26,085
and he just says, "We got him."

932
00:58:29,839 --> 00:58:32,467
When I heard that,
tears welled in my eyes,

933
00:58:32,967 --> 00:58:36,721
and I looked over at my colleague
who was up there with me.

934
00:58:37,430 --> 00:58:38,765
We just looked at each other.

935
00:58:42,060 --> 00:58:44,729
Hearing that inside the space was surreal.

936
00:58:44,812 --> 00:58:49,234
For me, there was some closure there.
Justice delayed, not denied.

937
00:58:49,984 --> 00:58:51,653
Justice delayed, not denied.

938
00:58:53,112 --> 00:58:54,113
We got him.

939
00:58:56,783 --> 00:59:01,037
I thought,
"Oh my God, you know, this is it."

940
00:59:02,413 --> 00:59:05,041
I hoped that my mom knew,
wherever she was.

941
00:59:07,961 --> 00:59:10,922
It was just a… a real sense of relief

942
00:59:11,005 --> 00:59:14,133
after a decade of effort to get bin Laden.

943
00:59:14,217 --> 00:59:17,095
Events that day
are forever etched in my mind.

944
00:59:19,222 --> 00:59:20,723
It was emotional,

945
00:59:21,516 --> 00:59:23,851
but it only lasted for a couple seconds

946
00:59:25,103 --> 00:59:26,980
'cause, in the heat of that moment,

947
00:59:27,063 --> 00:59:31,442
we were still focused on the SEALs
and the helicopters getting back safely.

948
00:59:32,610 --> 00:59:34,737
Obama still looked pretty stressed out,

949
00:59:34,821 --> 00:59:36,030
and he stood up, and he said,

950
00:59:36,614 --> 00:59:39,701
"I want you to tell me the minute
they're out of Pakistani airspace."

951
00:59:41,369 --> 00:59:44,956
The mission wasn't over,
because we still had to get the guys

952
00:59:45,039 --> 00:59:46,666
out of Pakistan and back to Afghanistan.

953
00:59:46,749 --> 00:59:49,127
No one takes a deep breath
until these things are done.

954
00:59:51,087 --> 00:59:53,590
I'm there, I look over,
bin Laden's body's right there.

955
00:59:54,674 --> 00:59:57,510
One of my guys comes up to me,
and he goes, "You good?"

956
00:59:57,594 --> 01:00:00,346
And I said, "What do we do now?"

957
01:00:00,930 --> 01:00:02,765
He said, "We find the computers.
Come on, man."

958
01:00:02,849 --> 01:00:04,851
I said, "You're right.
I'm back. Holy shit."

959
01:00:06,728 --> 01:00:08,855
Call from
the ground force commander. He says,

960
01:00:08,938 --> 01:00:12,358
"Look, we have found a treasure trove
of intelligence on the second floor."

961
01:00:12,942 --> 01:00:16,154
We're in offices with everything
from old-school tower hard drives

962
01:00:16,237 --> 01:00:18,156
to compact disks.

963
01:00:19,032 --> 01:00:22,577
I said, "Okay, get as much as you can.
We need to start gettin' out of here."

964
01:00:23,369 --> 01:00:26,289
By this time, outside the compound,

965
01:00:27,165 --> 01:00:30,126
people were showing up because there
was a disturbance in the neighborhood.

966
01:00:30,793 --> 01:00:33,254
We had an agency colleague
who was the linguist.

967
01:00:33,838 --> 01:00:35,882
He was on the periphery of the compound.

968
01:00:36,382 --> 01:00:38,259
He was trying to keep them at bay.

969
01:00:38,843 --> 01:00:40,553
My buddy, who was
a sniper outside, was like,

970
01:00:40,637 --> 01:00:43,890
"I'm fully prepared to engage these
people, so you better talk 'em out of it."

971
01:00:45,433 --> 01:00:48,811
And I had told the guys,
"Look, I… I don't wanna kill anybody

972
01:00:48,895 --> 01:00:51,481
unless you feel like,
you know, you are threatened."

973
01:00:54,484 --> 01:00:57,737
I was having a lot of anxiety. I said,
"Can we pick this up a little bit?"

974
01:00:57,820 --> 01:00:59,656
Make no mistake about it.

975
01:00:59,739 --> 01:01:01,866
We didn't take our eyes
off the Pakistani radars.

976
01:01:02,533 --> 01:01:04,202
We're finding so much good stuff.

977
01:01:04,285 --> 01:01:08,289
We wanted 32 minutes on the ground, but
now we're pushing 40, we're 45 minutes.

978
01:01:11,876 --> 01:01:14,545
The closer we cut it to the edge,
we might save a lot more lives.

979
01:01:14,629 --> 01:01:15,880
We might save an American city

980
01:01:15,963 --> 01:01:18,800
or London because of stuff we find,
something they're planning.

981
01:01:18,883 --> 01:01:20,635
So we gotta just stick it out to the end.

982
01:01:22,512 --> 01:01:25,890
The amount of time on the ground
was longer than anybody would want.

983
01:01:27,100 --> 01:01:29,644
At the time, a large crowd had formed.

984
01:01:29,727 --> 01:01:31,771
He says, "Nothin' to see here."

985
01:01:31,854 --> 01:01:34,649
"Pakistani exercise. Don't worry about it.
Get back to your homes."

986
01:01:37,568 --> 01:01:40,446
Now we gotta get bin Laden's body
in a body bag. We're bringing him back.

987
01:01:42,740 --> 01:01:45,284
They come out with bin Laden's body

988
01:01:45,368 --> 01:01:47,745
to get in the helicopter
and the backup helicopter,

989
01:01:49,330 --> 01:01:50,331
and they leave.

990
01:01:52,250 --> 01:01:54,168
And they blow up the downed helicopter,

991
01:01:54,252 --> 01:01:56,129
'cause it had
some sensitive material on it.

992
01:01:59,173 --> 01:02:01,884
Watching that unfold
was right out of a movie.

993
01:02:07,598 --> 01:02:10,518
We're leaving. The pilot's
up front, flying as fast as we can.

994
01:02:10,601 --> 01:02:12,019
Pakistanis gotta know we're there.

995
01:02:13,062 --> 01:02:15,940
We see radar turned on.
We start seeing their silos open.

996
01:02:17,525 --> 01:02:19,777
They launched a couple of F-15s,

997
01:02:20,820 --> 01:02:23,239
trying to intercept our helicopters
on the way back.

998
01:02:23,740 --> 01:02:26,951
An F-16 against a 47 is not a good fight.
They could shoot us down.

999
01:02:28,494 --> 01:02:31,164
So I just start my watch,
and I gotta get to 90.

1000
01:02:31,247 --> 01:02:34,709
And 90 minutes means we cross the border
from Pakistan to Afghanistan,

1001
01:02:34,792 --> 01:02:36,294
and we can no longer be shot down

1002
01:02:36,377 --> 01:02:39,380
because we've got F-15s on the border
that can protect us.

1003
01:02:41,299 --> 01:02:43,676
All right, cool. Ten minutes.
We gotta get to 20 minutes.

1004
01:02:44,719 --> 01:02:47,722
Helicopters moving
at low speeds across the terrain.

1005
01:02:49,682 --> 01:02:52,101
We're getting call-outs from the ground

1006
01:02:52,185 --> 01:02:54,854
of how far out they were
from returning to base.

1007
01:02:56,939 --> 01:02:58,649
30 minutes. Gotta get to 90.

1008
01:03:00,526 --> 01:03:03,696
All of us inside that center
were kind of pushing the helicopters

1009
01:03:03,780 --> 01:03:05,823
to fly as fast as they could.

1010
01:03:09,202 --> 01:03:11,871
It's been 60 minutes, gotta get to 90.
Now it's 70 minutes.

1011
01:03:13,664 --> 01:03:15,666
I'm trying to keep my mind
off of everything.

1012
01:03:15,750 --> 01:03:19,086
I start thinking about,
in 1980, the Olympics in Lake Placid.

1013
01:03:19,170 --> 01:03:21,130
The excitement and tension building.

1014
01:03:21,214 --> 01:03:23,216
The Olympic Center filling to capacity.

1015
01:03:25,092 --> 01:03:28,137
The greatest hockey team ever assembled
in the Russians.

1016
01:03:28,971 --> 01:03:31,307
They haven't lost a gold medal
since, like, the '50s.

1017
01:03:32,266 --> 01:03:35,311
They're playing these young Americans
who are just out of college,

1018
01:03:35,394 --> 01:03:38,064
no business being on the ice,
but now they're winning.

1019
01:03:38,648 --> 01:03:41,359
Four to three, third period.
You can hear the crowd.

1020
01:03:41,442 --> 01:03:45,571
Ten, nine… We could still screw this up.
They're nervous.

1021
01:03:46,072 --> 01:03:48,115
Eight. Seven.

1022
01:03:49,534 --> 01:03:51,786
Six. Five.

1023
01:03:52,495 --> 01:03:53,496
Four.

1024
01:03:54,163 --> 01:03:55,248
Three.

1025
01:03:56,374 --> 01:03:57,625
Two.

1026
01:04:03,464 --> 01:04:05,925
And then the pilot came over
85 minutes into the flight,

1027
01:04:06,008 --> 01:04:08,261
and he said, "Gentlemen,
for the first time in your lives,

1028
01:04:08,344 --> 01:04:09,762
you're gonna be happy to hear this."

1029
01:04:09,846 --> 01:04:11,305
"Welcome to Afghanistan."

1030
01:04:11,389 --> 01:04:13,850
Do you believe in miracles? Yes!

1031
01:04:13,933 --> 01:04:15,434
Unbelievable!

1032
01:04:17,186 --> 01:04:20,356
When the helicopter makes it
across the Pakistani border,

1033
01:04:20,439 --> 01:04:22,024
the Pakistanis turn around.

1034
01:04:24,694 --> 01:04:27,613
There's a huge sigh of relief
'cause they're safe.

1035
01:04:30,491 --> 01:04:33,202
It's just surreal just to succeed

1036
01:04:33,286 --> 01:04:36,372
because, again,
we'd accepted death on this mission,

1037
01:04:36,455 --> 01:04:37,790
but it's nice to live.

1038
01:04:40,835 --> 01:04:46,424
When those helicopters landed
back at Jalalabad in Afghanistan,

1039
01:04:46,507 --> 01:04:50,219
that was the moment
where all of us around the table said,

1040
01:04:50,303 --> 01:04:51,679
"Mission accomplished."

1041
01:04:52,179 --> 01:04:53,764
"Mission accomplished."

1042
01:04:53,848 --> 01:04:56,601
Everything we had done,
all of the planning,

1043
01:04:57,184 --> 01:04:58,436
all of the work,

1044
01:04:59,103 --> 01:05:00,521
had paid off

1045
01:05:01,314 --> 01:05:03,357
in achieving something I thought…

1046
01:05:03,441 --> 01:05:05,943
we never thought we would be able to do,

1047
01:05:06,027 --> 01:05:08,779
which was to bring bin Laden to justice.

1048
01:05:10,907 --> 01:05:14,201
And we hugged each other
and congratulated each other.

1049
01:05:15,912 --> 01:05:18,039
-Good job, National Security Team.
-Sir.

1050
01:05:18,122 --> 01:05:19,123
-Thank you.
-Yes, sir.

1051
01:05:19,206 --> 01:05:20,791
-Yeah, I'm proud of you.
-Thank you.

1052
01:05:21,292 --> 01:05:23,002
-Your guys did a great job.
-They did.

1053
01:05:23,085 --> 01:05:26,422
When the President of the United States
tells you you've done a good job,

1054
01:05:26,505 --> 01:05:27,924
you never forget that.

1055
01:05:28,007 --> 01:05:29,508
You never forget that moment.

1056
01:05:37,600 --> 01:05:39,226
The day of the raid,

1057
01:05:39,310 --> 01:05:41,687
my daughter was a senior in high school.

1058
01:05:42,605 --> 01:05:44,607
It was her last concert.

1059
01:05:46,275 --> 01:05:48,653
And my wife is saying,
you know, "Where are you?"

1060
01:05:49,862 --> 01:05:50,863
Um…

1061
01:05:52,198 --> 01:05:53,449
And I said, "I can't."

1062
01:05:54,617 --> 01:05:58,037
And she said,
"You can't? You can't take an hour?"

1063
01:05:59,455 --> 01:06:02,291
"What you're doing
is more important than your daughter?"

1064
01:06:04,251 --> 01:06:06,253
And I said, "I gotta go," and I hung up.

1065
01:06:09,465 --> 01:06:12,218
The rest of the day,
she's sitting on the sofa

1066
01:06:12,301 --> 01:06:15,096
trying to figure out,
"How does this divorce thing work?"

1067
01:06:18,933 --> 01:06:21,352
I've been working so many hours,

1068
01:06:22,812 --> 01:06:24,146
seven days a week,

1069
01:06:24,855 --> 01:06:26,148
no days off.

1070
01:06:28,192 --> 01:06:31,153
My marriage was
in deep, deep, deep trouble.

1071
01:06:33,155 --> 01:06:37,284
When the president decides
he is gonna tell the nation,

1072
01:06:38,285 --> 01:06:41,497
I call her, and I say, "Turn on the TV…

1073
01:06:44,709 --> 01:06:46,085
and you'll understand."

1074
01:06:49,005 --> 01:06:50,506
And she said, "You got him."

1075
01:06:51,674 --> 01:06:53,676
Breaking news, President Barack Obama

1076
01:06:53,759 --> 01:06:55,928
is expected to make
a surprise announcement.

1077
01:06:56,012 --> 01:06:57,430
We do not know what it's about,

1078
01:06:57,513 --> 01:07:00,057
but we do expect it to be
a huge announcement

1079
01:07:00,141 --> 01:07:02,476
because this is very unusual.

1080
01:07:02,560 --> 01:07:05,688
I'm home, and I'm in bed with my daughter,

1081
01:07:05,771 --> 01:07:07,773
and I'm reading her bedtime stories.

1082
01:07:07,857 --> 01:07:11,944
Emily comes in, my wife, and she says,
"All the phones are ringing."

1083
01:07:12,028 --> 01:07:13,821
I'm like, "I'm reading this story."

1084
01:07:13,904 --> 01:07:16,699
She's like, "No, all the phones
are ringing." That's never good.

1085
01:07:16,782 --> 01:07:18,534
Uh, the White House called,

1086
01:07:18,617 --> 01:07:20,286
uh, informing each news…

1087
01:07:20,369 --> 01:07:22,413
uh, news organization individually tonight

1088
01:07:22,496 --> 01:07:24,415
that there would be a statement sometime…

1089
01:07:24,498 --> 01:07:26,333
Obama's like, "Well, I need a speech."

1090
01:07:26,417 --> 01:07:27,835
And I hadn't written it.

1091
01:07:27,918 --> 01:07:30,463
And so I was like, "Oh shit."

1092
01:07:31,547 --> 01:07:34,216
I turn around, and I'm like,
"I need five minutes!"

1093
01:07:34,300 --> 01:07:37,470
And I'm like, "Oh shit. You don't talk
to the president like that."

1094
01:07:37,553 --> 01:07:41,182
You certainly don't talk to him like that
in front of, like, his whole cabinet,

1095
01:07:41,265 --> 01:07:43,934
But I was like…
And he's like, "I got you."

1096
01:07:44,018 --> 01:07:46,979
So we came up and talked a bit about,
"What do you want in the speech?"

1097
01:07:48,022 --> 01:07:50,149
I've written
thousands of speeches in my life.

1098
01:07:50,232 --> 01:07:54,612
Nothing remotely approached
the feeling of writing that.

1099
01:07:54,695 --> 01:07:56,822
I think, when I wrote that first sentence,

1100
01:07:57,531 --> 01:08:00,409
the enormity of what I had
the opportunity to do kind of hit me.

1101
01:08:00,493 --> 01:08:03,037
Like, "I'm telling the world about this."

1102
01:08:03,120 --> 01:08:06,749
It was frantic, but I was used to frantic
finalizing speeches with Obama.

1103
01:08:06,832 --> 01:08:08,501
He likes to edit to the end.

1104
01:08:08,584 --> 01:08:10,795
Literally, I've got
his written edits on a draft,

1105
01:08:10,878 --> 01:08:13,756
and I had to sprint
to the teleprompter operator

1106
01:08:13,839 --> 01:08:16,008
to beat Obama walking behind me, you know?

1107
01:08:18,302 --> 01:08:19,762
But then what was eerie is

1108
01:08:19,845 --> 01:08:23,349
you know, there's a very small group
of press that's assembled for this.

1109
01:08:23,432 --> 01:08:26,477
And then, there's a handful of us,
but it's this huge, empty room.

1110
01:08:26,560 --> 01:08:27,645
And so what you see on TV

1111
01:08:27,728 --> 01:08:30,856
is just Obama walking down
the long, red hallway to the podium.

1112
01:08:33,442 --> 01:08:36,403
And what he's speaking to
is just some cameras, you know?

1113
01:08:36,487 --> 01:08:38,197
Like, there's not an audience.

1114
01:08:38,781 --> 01:08:41,242
And we're just kind of sitting there
at the back of the room.

1115
01:08:42,284 --> 01:08:43,327
Good evening.

1116
01:08:44,078 --> 01:08:47,998
Tonight, I can report
to the American people and to the world

1117
01:08:48,499 --> 01:08:50,709
that the United States
has conducted an operation

1118
01:08:50,793 --> 01:08:54,463
that killed Osama bin Laden,
the leader of al-Qaida.

1119
01:08:54,547 --> 01:08:57,800
I hear President Obama say
"Osama bin Laden."

1120
01:08:58,300 --> 01:09:00,845
I looked at Osama bin Laden,
and I thought,

1121
01:09:01,846 --> 01:09:04,473
"How in the fuck did I get here
from Butte, Montana?"

1122
01:09:04,557 --> 01:09:06,642
And then we kind of get back,
and he's talking,

1123
01:09:06,725 --> 01:09:10,104
and guys around me are like,
"Say it. Say that no one was hurt."

1124
01:09:10,688 --> 01:09:12,982
A small team of Americans
carried out the operation

1125
01:09:13,065 --> 01:09:15,734
with extraordinary courage and capability.

1126
01:09:16,527 --> 01:09:18,279
No Americans were harmed.

1127
01:09:19,155 --> 01:09:21,740
I looked at Brennan
as Obama's talking, and I was like,

1128
01:09:23,367 --> 01:09:25,703
"How long have you been
trying to get bin Laden?"

1129
01:09:26,203 --> 01:09:30,040
And, like, without missing a beat,
he's like, "15 years." You know?

1130
01:09:30,124 --> 01:09:32,293
Like, he knew it exactly in his head.

1131
01:09:32,376 --> 01:09:34,545
You know, Sudan to Afghanistan.

1132
01:09:35,254 --> 01:09:38,132
And… and that was
the kind of feeling of like,

1133
01:09:38,215 --> 01:09:42,720
"Oh my God, like, there's so many people
that have tried to get this guy."

1134
01:09:43,679 --> 01:09:45,306
It was nearly ten years ago

1135
01:09:45,806 --> 01:09:47,683
that a bright September day was darkened

1136
01:09:47,766 --> 01:09:51,228
by the worst attack
on the American people in our history.

1137
01:09:54,773 --> 01:09:56,442
And on nights like this one,

1138
01:09:56,525 --> 01:09:59,153
we can say to those families
who have lost loved ones

1139
01:09:59,236 --> 01:10:00,571
to al-Qaida's terror,

1140
01:10:01,280 --> 01:10:03,073
justice has been done.

1141
01:10:06,744 --> 01:10:09,121
Tonight, we give thanks
to the countless intelligence

1142
01:10:09,205 --> 01:10:11,999
and counterterrorism professionals
who've worked tirelessly

1143
01:10:12,082 --> 01:10:13,375
to achieve this outcome.

1144
01:10:15,753 --> 01:10:19,840
The American people do not see their work,
nor know their names,

1145
01:10:20,758 --> 01:10:23,886
but tonight,
they feel the satisfaction of their work…

1146
01:10:26,055 --> 01:10:28,557
and the result
of their pursuit of justice.

1147
01:10:32,561 --> 01:10:33,604
Thank you.

1148
01:10:34,730 --> 01:10:37,358
And may God bless
the United States of America.

1149
01:10:41,820 --> 01:10:44,615
After he gave his speech,

1150
01:10:44,698 --> 01:10:46,492
I went back down to my office,

1151
01:10:46,992 --> 01:10:50,162
and as I started to make my way
out of the West Wing,

1152
01:10:50,246 --> 01:10:54,250
I could see that outside
it was lighter than usual

1153
01:10:54,333 --> 01:10:55,459
for that time of night.

1154
01:10:57,127 --> 01:11:02,299
And I could see throngs of people
converging on Lafayette Park,

1155
01:11:02,925 --> 01:11:05,135
and they were chanting, "USA, USA."

1156
01:11:14,895 --> 01:11:18,899
People were sharing in the joy
of what had happened,

1157
01:11:18,983 --> 01:11:22,403
and I realized at that point,

1158
01:11:22,486 --> 01:11:25,781
we'd not only brought justice
to bin Laden,

1159
01:11:26,865 --> 01:11:29,994
but in many ways,
we had really brought justice

1160
01:11:30,077 --> 01:11:33,872
to all of those victims
whose families had died

1161
01:11:34,456 --> 01:11:36,625
in the Trade Towers and elsewhere.

1162
01:11:42,381 --> 01:11:45,009
I go downstairs,
and I grab a beer from the fridge,

1163
01:11:45,092 --> 01:11:47,886
and then I thought,
"This is probably more than a beer thing,"

1164
01:11:47,970 --> 01:11:51,473
so I grabbed a bottle of whiskey
from the cabinet.

1165
01:11:51,974 --> 01:11:53,350
And I started to head to the porch,

1166
01:11:53,434 --> 01:11:56,478
and I stopped and grabbed a cigar
from the box in the den

1167
01:11:57,021 --> 01:11:59,481
'cause I thought,
"Well, this is gonna be a good night."

1168
01:11:59,565 --> 01:12:02,276
Thank you, USA!

1169
01:12:04,361 --> 01:12:06,655
And now I'm ready, and I'm thinking,

1170
01:12:07,740 --> 01:12:11,493
"Here you are about to celebrate,
you know, the…

1171
01:12:12,494 --> 01:12:14,747
the death of another person
in a violent way,

1172
01:12:14,830 --> 01:12:16,999
and aren't we more civilized than that?"

1173
01:12:17,082 --> 01:12:20,419
And I thought for just one more second,
I said, "You know what? Fuck him."

1174
01:12:21,253 --> 01:12:23,255
"He died the way he was supposed to die."

1175
01:12:30,095 --> 01:12:32,890
The president was concerned

1176
01:12:33,474 --> 01:12:36,685
about what we would do
with bin Laden's body.

1177
01:12:48,781 --> 01:12:52,701
The decision was
that we would transfer the body

1178
01:12:52,785 --> 01:12:55,579
to an aircraft carrier
in the Indian Ocean,

1179
01:12:56,705 --> 01:12:59,458
and he would receive
the last Muslim rites,

1180
01:13:00,042 --> 01:13:02,711
uh, but that he would be buried at sea

1181
01:13:04,129 --> 01:13:08,759
so that it would not be located someplace
that could become a shrine.

1182
01:13:12,137 --> 01:13:14,932
The thing that I'll never forget is
the military put together

1183
01:13:15,015 --> 01:13:18,310
this photo album
of the journey of bin Laden's body.

1184
01:13:18,394 --> 01:13:21,522
It started with him… just shot, you know,

1185
01:13:21,605 --> 01:13:23,816
and then back in Jalalabad,

1186
01:13:23,899 --> 01:13:26,110
then face cleaned up.

1187
01:13:26,193 --> 01:13:28,320
What I remember
so powerfully about it is not, like,

1188
01:13:28,404 --> 01:13:30,781
the picture of bin Laden's face shot off,

1189
01:13:32,199 --> 01:13:34,701
it was the naval vessel.

1190
01:13:35,536 --> 01:13:38,038
There's his body wrapped in a shroud

1191
01:13:38,831 --> 01:13:41,208
being lowered into the water,

1192
01:13:42,000 --> 01:13:44,336
just slipping under the water.

1193
01:13:47,047 --> 01:13:49,383
I remember being very affected by that.

1194
01:13:51,176 --> 01:13:53,512
After all these world events,

1195
01:13:53,595 --> 01:13:56,140
this human being

1196
01:13:56,223 --> 01:14:00,018
is just somewhere in the Indian Ocean

1197
01:14:00,102 --> 01:14:01,645
wrapped in a white shroud.

1198
01:14:09,528 --> 01:14:14,032
The United States
definitely won the battle after 9/11.

1199
01:14:14,116 --> 01:14:16,493
No more attacks on the homeland at scale.

1200
01:14:16,577 --> 01:14:19,037
Capture, killing

1201
01:14:19,121 --> 01:14:22,958
of the entire al-Qaida senior leadership
that was responsible for 9/11.

1202
01:14:23,750 --> 01:14:26,253
But I fear bin Laden may have won the war.

1203
01:14:27,337 --> 01:14:29,923
I think bin Laden weakened America.

1204
01:14:31,091 --> 01:14:35,095
The trillions of dollars we spent
on counterterrorism,

1205
01:14:35,179 --> 01:14:37,097
the lengthy war in Afghanistan,

1206
01:14:37,181 --> 01:14:39,475
the war in Iraq divided Americans.

1207
01:14:39,558 --> 01:14:41,101
It's still playing out today.

1208
01:14:46,315 --> 01:14:49,943
I was beyond impressed with everyone

1209
01:14:50,027 --> 01:14:52,738
who was involved
in getting us to that point.

1210
01:14:54,907 --> 01:14:56,074
But…

1211
01:14:58,327 --> 01:14:59,495
Uh, I don't know.

1212
01:15:00,579 --> 01:15:01,663
I want

1213
01:15:02,748 --> 01:15:05,167
someone who deserves

1214
01:15:06,543 --> 01:15:07,711
to suffer

1215
01:15:08,754 --> 01:15:12,716
to suffer in the way
that they fear the most.

1216
01:15:13,634 --> 01:15:17,429
I wanted him to die an old man,

1217
01:15:17,930 --> 01:15:19,431
completely forgotten,

1218
01:15:19,515 --> 01:15:22,017
to live to know
that no one cared about him

1219
01:15:22,100 --> 01:15:24,978
or thought about him or knew who he was.

1220
01:15:25,062 --> 01:15:30,192
That, to me, was the worst thing
you could do to him, to any terrorist.

1221
01:15:32,861 --> 01:15:35,948
I just think people don't understand

1222
01:15:37,074 --> 01:15:43,330
the power we have to destroy terrorism
by not being influenced by it,

1223
01:15:44,122 --> 01:15:48,043
by not being afraid of it,
by not making decisions because of it.

1224
01:15:50,671 --> 01:15:54,675
That is the greatest way
you can neutralize it and destroy it.

1225
01:15:56,593 --> 01:15:59,846
Just to say, "F you," you know?

1226
01:15:59,930 --> 01:16:02,724
"You are not changing who we are
or what we do."

1227
01:16:06,812 --> 01:16:11,858
You see the turmoil of the world
stirring that pot again,

1228
01:16:12,359 --> 01:16:15,862
where it will, um, cause tragedy,

1229
01:16:16,863 --> 01:16:19,241
anger, excite emotions,

1230
01:16:20,158 --> 01:16:22,494
and someone else will come along

1231
01:16:23,662 --> 01:16:24,871
and exploit that.

1232
01:16:27,165 --> 01:16:28,750
It's not the end of the story,

1233
01:16:30,460 --> 01:16:32,254
but it's the end of this chapter,

1234
01:16:33,338 --> 01:16:34,923
the bin Laden chapter.