Osama bin Laden - Obama Presidency Oral History Back Osama bin Laden Index / People Transcripts Susan Rice ...willing to go into Pakistan to go after bin Laden . I'm wondering if you can say a littl... Michael Leiter ...of course, the successful raid to get [Osama] bin Laden . The other pivot to me was not on... ...shape the role that NCTC played in the bin Laden raid? No. It didn't change anythin... ...It didn't change anything related to bin Laden . There's another role on bin Lade... ...to bin Laden. There's another role on bin Laden that we did play a role on that is no... ...knew who was in charge of the hunt for bin Laden : CIA, appropriately so. That was thei... ...in that year and a half because the bin Laden story was already fairly far along b... ...talking mid-2010, and then of course bin Laden is a year later. So there was already ... ...we knew that if it was a nugget about bin Laden , CIA was going to hunt down everythin... ...sure pursuit did not contribute to the bin Laden success. When do you kind of intersec... ...of intersect with that story of the bin Laden raid? In my view, my experience doe... ...third time we have a meeting about the bin Laden raid in April of 2011 now, about a yea... ...thought al-Qaeda's reaction would be to bin Laden if we killed him, which of course no... ...again, to DEFCON 1 if we actually get bin Laden ? I have long thought it was a hig... ...same intelligence. One, that it was bin Laden , but he wasn't there. Two, that it wa... ...he wasn't there. Two, that it was never bin Laden ; it was someone else from al-Qaeda... ...than, equal to, or more than it being bin Laden there now? There was a little bit of ... ...was seventy percent likely that it was bin Laden . One of the analysts kind of sai... ...it was forty percent likely that it was bin Laden . By the way, all of them also sai... ...way, all of them also said that it was bin Laden and bin Laden was there was the mos... ...also said that it was bin Laden and bin Laden was there was the most likely outcome... ...got better at it. That discussion about bin Laden is not as good if you have it in da... ...probably accelerates a little bit with bin Laden , although you get a good outcom... ...I can do this myself.” I think, again, bin Laden to some extent might have accelerate... ...once after Christmas Day—Christmas Day, bin Laden , all these things—in my experience o... Show more... Jake Sullivan ...going into Pakistani territory after Osama bin Laden ; engagement with adversaries, fo... Michael Mullen ...talk about—we're going to talk about [Osama] bin Laden . But I started my relationship wit... ...on May first is the raid [in] which Osama bin Laden is killed. A number of people hav... ...of the things that was going on in bin Laden 's world is, his gatekeepers, th... ...of the United States—if we find bin Laden or Zawahiri, number one and number two... ...of reasons, but the big deal about the bin Laden raid was, we didn't have a smoking gun... ...when the [Twin] Towers came down, when bin Laden did this. I was so struck that at nin... Show more... Michael Morell ...it. That happened during the [Osama] bin Laden discussions, for example. We can tal... ...work any better than it did on the bin Laden raid. That's where the whole proces... ...well. I want to ask about the bin Laden raid. You've written extensively abou... ...a judgment that Abu Ahmed is harboring bin Laden at the Abbottabad compound. That was... ...level. But for some reason, in the bin Laden discussion, we got away from low... ...you, Mr. President, that the case that bin Laden is at Abbottabad is weaker than th... ...wanted to go in there and see if it was bin Laden , and here his own deputy is saying... ...the information that we had meant bin Laden was there or not. Maybe in light o... ...I can't go out there and say we got bin Laden , and then the guy turns up tomorro... ...said was, “Congratulations, you killed bin Laden .” By that time, the Pakistani militar... ...the president an update on the hunt for bin Laden . So President Bush remembered many o... ...adversaries any other way. Had you done bin Laden kind of raids, you would have put U... ...gain. So if you're going to kill, say, bin Laden , that's a huge military gain. You'r... Show more... William Burns ...demonstrated so expertly in taking down [Osama] bin Laden . And so there was a kind of inertia... Anne Patterson ...popularity sometimes was lower than Osama bin Laden 's in Pakistan, but I never frankl... Samantha Power ...on record and said that if he knew that bin Laden was in Pakistan, he would go after bi... ...was in Pakistan, he would go after bin Laden . [Laughs] “Oh, you can't do that. It'... ...maybe that will make them go after bin Laden , so that they aren't going to b... ...from it? Why wouldn't you go after bin Laden if you had the opportunity? Is tha... ...we do. And I wasn't in the room for the bin Laden raid, and a huge part of a fres... ...I know, is what Obama looked for in the bin Laden discussions. But it's just to come a... Show more... Stephen Kroft ...with Obama after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011, and an exit interview wit... ...the interview, the sit-down, after the Osama bin Laden raid, which, yesterday, was th... ...to do, but it created this void. Then bin Laden had been killed, and I think the... William McRaven ...Postgraduate School. Certainly in the [Osama] bin Laden raid, everything we did was kind o... ...thousands of missions prior to the bin Laden raid really helped refine the theor... ...wars, about the question of going after bin Laden . I wonder if, in the scope of th... ...we're welcome to move forward to the Osama bin Laden raid, but I want to make sure we cove... ...when we are in position to conduct the bin Laden raid. What I think happened betwee... ...what that reminded me of was when the bin Laden raid happened, it kind of refocused m... ...I didn't make that mistake during the bin Laden raid. It strikes me that one of th... ...that process-building—to ask about the bin Laden raid. The way I like to start thes... ...Well, of course, we'd been hunting bin Laden since nine-eleven. And m... ...which, of course, panned out. But the bin Laden raid for me really began in December o... ...“Look, CIA thinks they have a lead on bin Laden , and they may give you a call to com... ...only because we had so many leads on bin Laden . I thought, Well, this is just goin... ...But for me, in terms of the bin Laden raid, it really began in December o... ...I'll give you an example. Before the bin Laden raid, when Leon Panetta became th... ...it was a year or so later when the bin Laden raid happens, and frankly, I give al... ...and how they thought that might be bin Laden . But once again it was like, “Well... ...that, hey, this guy could really be bin Laden . Although the intelligence wasn't—i... ...you to say, “Yep, this is absolutely bin Laden .” This will go down as one of th... ...you just couldn't confirm that it was bin Laden . But to me—and I've told people this... ...prosecute the target as though it were bin Laden and as though bin Laden had taken ever... ...though it were bin Laden and as though bin Laden had taken every caution necessary t... ...assumption that, well, maybe it's not bin Laden , then I would have built the pla... ...had to build the plan as though it were bin Laden , because that's the only way we coul... ...to me in the planning whether it was bin Laden or not, because I had to plan for th... ...day it turns out the guy we thought was bin Laden is nothing but a tall Pakistani, thi... ...children? What are we going to do with bin Laden 's remains if it turns out to be bi... ...Laden's remains if it turns out to be bin Laden ? Every possible aspect of the mission... ...with the third floor where we thought bin Laden was. And it would have been easy fo... ...rereading Leon Panetta's book on the bin Laden raid over the weekend, and he talk... ...was about to go forward, and obviously Osama bin Laden carried a little bit more importance... ...feel the added pressure of it being the bin Laden raid, because I was too focused o... ...he did not know, whether or not it was bin Laden . I've said before that I think thi... ...that if they got in there to get bin Laden , that just as they entered the room h... ...confirmation that the body was in fact bin Laden 's, in part because it's an interestin... ...“Well, Bill, do we know whether it's bin Laden or not?” And I said, “Sir, I don'... ...the United States—that this is in fact Osama bin Laden .” My little command center was just ... ...colleague of mine who'd been hunting bin Laden for a long time. I remember that as w... ...frankly [laughs], it was pretty clearly bin Laden . But once again, I knew the presiden... ...what I thought. And, of course, I knew bin Laden was about six foot four. So I unzippe... ...checks, but I was pretty certain it was bin Laden . So I drive back to my littl... ...the president says, “Well, Bill, is it bin Laden ?” And I said, “Well, sir, without DN... ...to grips with the end of the hunt for bin Laden , I just wondered what you saw in tha... ...done hit you? I see what I think is the bin Laden wanted poster over your shoulder, yo... ...in the midst of the planning for the Osama bin Laden raid. What conversations did you hav... ...in those years, particularly after the bin Laden raid, that policymakers are thinkin... ...you were involved in, and then the Osama bin Laden raid. But just, kind of, as you zoo... Show more... Load more Transcripts Related Topics go to the Elections and Campaigns Elections and Campaigns go to the Agriculture Agriculture go to the Supreme Court Supreme Court go to the Russia Russia go to the Native America Native America