Osama bin Laden - Obama Presidency Oral History Back Osama bin Laden Index / People Transcripts James Jones ...more evident than what they did with [Osama] bin Laden . So I think Pakistan was a rea... Harold Hongju Koh ...certainly more discriminate to kill Osama bin Laden then it is to drop a bomb on Hiroshim... ...attack the United States—people like Osama bin Laden —and have the capability of doin... ...to invoke a self-defense rationale. Osama bin Laden tried to attack the United State... ...think the culprits are al-Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden . We think it's about a hundred people... ...with regard to the hard core of this— bin Laden and his closest allies—we've declare... Ben Rhodes ...for the US to go into Pakistan to get Osama bin Laden , which seemed to cut against hi... ...seemed like a commonsense thing: that bin Laden 's there, we have to go get him. He wa... ...for the US to go into Pakistan to get bin Laden , to engage in direct diplomacy wit... ...the idea of going to Pakistan to get bin Laden became hugely controversial. Peopl... ...the Iran diplomacy, the Iraq War, bin Laden policy, and a crazy follow-u... ...to say he'd use nuclear weapons against bin Laden , and that was treated as a gaff... ...you shouldn't go into Pakistan and get bin Laden are now saying you should not rule ou... ...nuclear weapons in Pakistan against bin Laden ?” This is what's wrong with America... ...that validation to point back to. The bin Laden thing is a little more interesting... ...the US had a better chance of getting bin Laden than was previously known, in Pakista... ...“We should go into Pakistan and get bin Laden .” It made some waves. There were som... ...we should go into Pakistan and get bin Laden .” None of our other foreign polic... ...on diplomacy with Iran and going after bin Laden that not many people are aware of. Lik... ...with Iran and for going to get bin Laden , which are commonsense positions. The... ...speech where we said, “Go after bin Laden .” I had asked for every polic... ...the US carries out the raid that kills Osama bin Laden . You write about it really eloquentl... ...a month later. We did allude to the bin Laden thing. We did use a line in tha... ...so he gave a speech about Libya. Then bin Laden happened. So this speech that he kep... ...these leaders you don't like than what bin Laden argued for.” I thought it was a ver... ...that could link all these events— bin Laden , the Arab Spring, Middle East peace... ...kept it totally secret. Not since the bin Laden raid, I think, had something been suc... Show more... Jeremy Bash ...of course, the ultimate example was the [Osama] bin Laden operation, having someone like Joh... ...And we can talk about the bin Laden operation, because, of course, that'... ...very dramatic. Before we get to the Osama bin Laden raid, in time, you had mentione... ...government, ultimately help chase bin Laden and the al-Qaeda crew out of Tora Bor... ...and carry that conversation into the bin Laden raid. This will get us a little bit ou... ...if it had actionable intelligence about bin Laden being in Pakistan. So it's remarkabl... ...I wanted to ask where the story of the bin Laden raid actually starts for you whe... ...we asked a ton of question. Where is bin Laden ? Where is he hiding? What could it be... ...asked CIA officers responsible for the bin Laden hunt, “What's going on? Where do thing... ...take them off the battlefield. But bin Laden and his deputy, [Ayman al-] Zawahiri... ...who could lead us to Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden 's number two. And Zawahiri was ... ...room, “We're going to go after bin Laden if it's the last thing we do. And ... ...so he put one officer in charge of the bin Laden hunt, an officer who, in Secretar... ...collect and really drive into, where is bin Laden , and where could he be? And that le... ...who had been historic couriers for bin Laden , and as many people are familiar wit... ...the particular effort to track and find bin Laden ? Well, I mean, I was a manager o... ...this in the months leading up to the bin Laden operation. One is, I think he had ... ...when, obviously, we were planning the bin Laden operation, and there were many othe... ...going to be invading the country to get bin Laden . It was very tense. But during tha... ...decisions were being made about the bin Laden operation, like, for example, on Apri... ...administration. And when you get bin Laden , it's downhill. And not that ther... ...that there was a sense, after we got bin Laden and after the surge happened i... ...had been on big display during the bin Laden operation and some of the C... ...then I would say in Afghanistan, once bin Laden was killed, and once a lot of th... ...border, not just the bin Laden operation. I'm talking about the day-i... ...with ruthless efficiency, including the bin Laden operation, protecting the homeland... Show more... Samuel Locklear ...period of time, he was able to dispatch Osama bin Laden , which I thought was a really goo... ...did have with him. We had no Libya or Osama bin Laden –type of scenario occur where he woul... Raul Salinas ...what he did with the terrorist. The Osama bin Laden raid? The Osama bin Laden raid. Whe... ... The Osama bin Laden raid? The Osama bin Laden raid. When you see that, wow. He was s... Denis McDonough ...of all of this, slightly after, is the Osama bin Laden raid. And I wanted to make sure to as... ...lonely search to find and kill bin Laden , which his book was subtitled, o... Hillary Clinton ...for al-Qaeda. Obviously, we found [Osama] bin Laden in Abbottabad [Pakistan]. So I though... ...somebody in your government knows where bin Laden is.” [Laughs] You just could never kno... ...make a mistake in going in and getting bin Laden without telling them. That was not ... ...at the devastation. And bringing bin Laden to justice was a primary goal of min... ...enough of a possibility, anyway, that bin Laden was in this compound they ha... ...the people who had been obsessed with bin Laden for all those years. Give it to othe... ...'98, my husband had intelligence that bin Laden was at a training camp with some of hi... ...our experience in dealing with a bin Laden who was a threat to us, but who had no... ...gave them time for somebody to alert bin Laden or not, we'll never know. But we d... ...We did not see them killing bin Laden . But we got word that he had bee... ...question is not about the bin Laden raid, but it made me think that, yo... ...week of May. This is right after the bin Laden raid. But the speech is about a new U... Show more... Tom Donilon ...And they did get cut off after the Osama bin Laden raid, so it turned out to be a ver... ...quite directly, “The case is cold with bin Laden , and I want maximum effort here. ... ...on how we're going to deal with bin Laden .” So that was an important piece... ...decisions around, after the takedown of bin Laden , should there have been a mor... Load more Transcripts Related Topics go to the Agriculture Agriculture go to the Hawaii Hawaii go to the Transition Transition go to the Democrats Democrats go to the Human Rights Human Rights