All language subtitles for Thengelsen (2012)

May 1, 2011,

Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind
of the 9/11 attack on America,

is at last within the sights of
United States special forces.

There was a real sense of
deep anxiety in the room.

It was totally silent.

The fears about
what could possibly go wrong,

suddenly all of those fears
are coming true.

As Bin Laden's
terror attacks

spiral across the world,

a superpower struggles for years
to find and eliminate

the world's most wanted man.

The world's only
remaining superpower

didn't have the ability
to get one guy.

Now, through
the memories of the people

who led the mission
to get Bin Laden,

this film tells the inside story

of the most intensive manhunt
in history.

"Find Bin Laden,
kill him, cut off his head,

and I'm going to take it down
and show the president."

It's a story of
presidential frustrations

and missed opportunities.

I want justice.

There's an old poster out west,
as I recall,

that said,
"wanted dead or alive!"

The president
got to the point

where at every single
intelligence briefing,

the first question was,

where is Bin Laden and
what are we doing to find him?

A story of
military confusions

and vicious turf wars.

The CIA has a bunch of bad guys

that are coming to the U.S.

We know their flight
information, for Christ's sakes!

And you don't tell the FBI?

All the intelligence agencies

focused on Bin Laden.

And the task
was to find him.

And, of course, his task
was to not be found.

You can run,
and you can hide,

but we will never stop looking,

and eventually,
we will find you.

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For most of the world,

September 11, 2001, is
a catastrophe without warning.

But for a handful of insiders

who've spent the previous decade
pursuing Osama Bin Laden,

the signals had been
alarmingly clear.

We worried that
Bin Laden would carry out

an attack in the United States.

We were the far enemy,

he said the far enemy
should be attacked.

It wasn't like,
oh, my gosh, look what happened.

It was a consummation
of everything

that we had reported
about osama Bin Laden.

For a small group
of counter-terrorism specialists

from the CIA, the FBI,
and the white house

for whom Bin Laden
has become an obsession,

9/11 is the bleakest moment
in a manhunt unlike any other.

They are now more driven
than ever to get him.

Terrorism consumes you.

You don't see your family,
you miss birthdays,

you miss holidays.

If you don't let it consume you,
it'll destroy you.

What if I'd stayed
five minutes later

in my office tonight?

What if I'd made
that one phone call?

What if I did that one link

between that person
and that person?

What am I missing
to get Bin Laden,

bring him to justice,
or kill him?

I had a "wanted"
poster in my house for Bin Laden

that was six feet tall.

It was in my bedroom.

I wanted
to kill him myself.

I didn't want somebody else
to do it.

Watch out, watch out!

February 26, 1993,
eight years before 9/11.

A truck bomb explodes underneath
the world trade center

in New York.

It is the first attempt to
take down the twin towers...

And a shocking message
that Islamist terror

has reached
the American heartland.

Six people are killed.

It's a lucky escape
for thousands.

As FBI specialists
begin to investigate,

one name keeps coming up...

Osama Bin Laden.

That first bombing
of the world trade center

was really the eye-opener
for radical extremism

and their activities
in the United States.

An attack on our soil,
domestically,

that event caused
all of the investigations

being opened up
into osama Bin Laden.

As the investigators
begin to piece together

the trail of evidence about
the mysterious Bin Laden,

they find an extraordinary
and disturbing story.

Osama Bin Laden
is the 17th child

of a billionaire
Saudi businessman.

On his father's death
he inherits a fortune,

and as a dedicated
student of Islam,

Bin Laden travels in 1984
to Afghanistan.

27-year-old Bin Laden joins
thousands of Islamic guerrillas

in their jihad...

A holy war against
the godless communist armies

of the Soviet union
which have invaded Afghanistan.

Bin Laden helps to fund
the jihad with his millions.

The jihadists also have
an unlikely ally...

America's CIA,

which is supporting
the anti-communist fighters.

CIA chief Gary schroen
is in Afghanistan,

working with
the Islamic Mujahideen.

There's a rumor
that Bin Laden

was a great jihadist leader,
that he led his men in combat.

But it looks like his commander
thought that his checkbook

was much more important
than his use of a Kalashnikov.

Bin Laden begins
to make an impression

on his fellow fighters.

He was very, very calm,

and he was like
a unique individual, you know.

Even when you are angry or you...

Sometimes your action
may provoke him, you know.

He was capable always
to remain calm and silent

and he would give
a very wide smile, you know,

as a message of peace.

Bin Laden soon finds
his key role in jihad.

With a handful of
other Islamic fighters,

he drafts this founding document
for Al Qaeda..."The base,"

an organization to rally and
coordinate terrorist groups

from around the world.

We knew nothing
about Al Qaeda at the time.

We didn't even know the name
Al Qaeda at the time.

I mean, Al Qaeda had
come into existence

and had its basic documents
of incorporation

and had meetings
and all of that,

and the CIA had never noticed.

February 15, 1989.

The last Soviet forces
pull out of Afghanistan.

Bin Laden has learned
a crucial lesson...

Jihad can defeat a superpower.

August 1990.

U.S. forces are invited into
Bin Laden's Saudi homeland

to fight the first Gulf war
against Iraq.

Bin Laden is infuriated by the
arrival of American soldiers,

and the event
will shape his life

and ignite his rage against
the United States.

He issues fierce denunciations
of the Saudi rulers

for allowing infidel forces
onto the holy soil of Islam.

I think since then,

Bin Laden, he was like
100% committed to the idea

of, like, fighting against the...
What he called the crusaders

and the enemy of Islam,

he was, I think, clear

about exactly the vision
he should adopt.

Bin Laden's vision
is nothing less

than a new world order.

He is determined
to free Palestine,

and to bring fundamentalist
Islamic rule around the world

to counter western imperialism
and American power.

Following his bitter
denunciations

of the Saudi rulers,

Bin Laden is expelled
from his homeland.

In April 1991,
he arrives in Sudan

and begins to turn Al Qaeda
into a force of global terror.

Bin Laden is welcomed
by the regime in Khartoum,

which is a refuge for
international terrorists.

For the first time,
America begins to pay attention.

What he was doing
was preserving his Afghan army

by bringing the veterans
down to Sudan,

and then he was using Khartoum
as a staging base

to bring radical terrorist types
from all over the Islamic world.

October 1993,

eight months after
the world trade center bombing.

Bin Laden strikes in Africa...

But once again, the target
is the United States.

In the incident that becomes
known as "black hawk down,"

two U.S. helicopters are brought
down by Somali terrorists.

The images of dead U.S. soldiers

dragged through the streets
of Mogadishu

will burn into
American memories.

The terrorists have been trained
by Bin Laden's Afghan veterans.

They began to
shoot down American helicopters

using a technique that the
people had used in Afghanistan,

are rocket-propelled grenades
fired from tall buildings.

That's not intuitive,

you don't know to do it
unless you're taught.

18 American soldiers
and hundreds of Somalis

are killed.

I, William Jefferson Clinton,
do solemnly swear...

President Bill Clinton is urged
by some advisors

to consider a radical idea...

Snatching Bin Laden
from his base in Khartoum.

But there are obstacles,
both practical and legal.

The problem of
getting him in Khartoum

was the CIA told us they had
no capability to do snatches.

We were flabbergasted.

The CIA station chief
in Khartoum

insists his hands are tied.

It's very important
to remember

that at that time
there was no warrant

for osama Bin Laden's arrest.

Covert action to degrade them
as a terrorist group

was not approvable at that time.

So a big question was,

even if we did our hands on him,
what would happen next?

It's almost like the dog
who catches the car

that he's always chasing.

What do you do
when you finally catch him?

What the white house was told

was the world's only remaining
superpower, the United States...

Had just won the cold war...

Didn't have the ability
to get one guy in Khartoum.

Soon after
black hawk down,

President Clinton withdraws
U.S. troops from Somalia.

We didn't follow up,
we left.

So as a consequence,
Al Qaeda took the position

that you kill enough Americans,
and they'll run away.

Once again,
Bin Laden learns

that he can challenge
a superpower.

And the United States is
learning how complex it is

to take on Bin Laden.

In my mind,
the Mogadishu situation

should have been sufficient
to justify going to get him.

But it wasn't,
it wasn't allowed.

At the time,
despite these first attacks,

Bin Laden still seems
a distant threat.

And America is becoming
caught in the dilemma

that will haunt Bin Laden's
hunters all the way to 9/11.

Is he a criminal to be
brought to justice

through the legal system?

Or a mortal enemy to be targeted
by any means necessary?

For now, the focus is
on gathering intelligence

to uncover the true scale
of Bin Laden's threat.

A picture emerges
of Bin Laden

as really the head
of a terrorist group

that we need to worry about
a great deal.

By the mid 1990s,

America's counter-terrorist
specialists realize

that Al Qaeda is rapidly
expanding cells and influence

from west Africa right across
to the Indian subcontinent.

Bin Laden's ambition
to confront and defeat

American power around the world
is building.

Al Qaeda is almost like
an organized crime family,

in which you basically had
Bin Laden as the godfather.

Far more sophisticated
than we thought,

it would have been foolish

to make fun of Bin Laden
and Al Qaeda

to think it was just some
sort of harebrained idea

of a radical Islamist
who had no future.

It was an organization
top to bottom,

Bin Laden the CEO.

Soon acts of terror
erupt across the middle east.

November 1995,
five Americans killed in Riyadh.

June 1996, 19 U.S. airmen die
in the Khobar towers bombing.

There's even a plot to
assassinate President Clinton.

Finally, in 1996,

fearing Bin Laden's mayhem will
bring international sanctions,

Sudan expels its increasingly
uncontrollable guest.

Bin Laden flees to
his old refuge in Afghanistan.

He might as well have moved
to the other side of the moon

for all our ability

to do anything with him
in Afghanistan.

Building his new base
in Afghanistan,

Bin Laden has put himself beyond
the reach of his pursuers.

He makes an alliance
with the Taliban,

fanatical Islamic tribesmen

who are mounting
a remorseless attack

on the government in Kabul

and enforcing their
repressive rule as they advance.

In August 1996,

through a radical Islamic
newspaper in London,

Bin Laden issues a fatwa,
an Islamic decree,

against America for occupying
places holy to Islam.

It amounts to
a declaration of war.

This is a very bad man.

This guy has got to be stopped

before he becomes
what he becomes.

At a base
near the CIA headquarters

at Langley, Virginia,

the CIA and FBI combine

to form a special unit,
the Alex station,

dedicated to pursuing Bin Laden
and bringing him to justice.

"All Bin Laden, all the time"
was the desired attitude,

and it was the attitude of
the people working there.

But Bin Laden
remains a remote figure

pulling the strings
behind the scenes.

It's hard to find evidence
to mount a criminal case.

President Clinton secretly
authorizes the CIA

to seize him without
an arrest warrant.

But they can't kill him.

The president
literally signs his name

to a piece of paper
and says, "go do this."

And so we had authority
to go and try and capture him.

But on several occasions,

CIA intelligence about
Bin Laden's location

is judged to be unreliable.

We were asking the CIA

to try to snatch him
in Afghanistan.

And CIA went through
a whole series

of sort of
keystone cops-like episodes

where they hired
what they called "tribals."

The Afghan group
came up with a plan

to go in at night
and kidnap him,

and they provided photographs,
maps, sketches.

They had a cave where
they would hold him for 30 days.

They came up
with a sort of goofy plan

for a frontal assault
on Bin Laden's walled compound,

a walled compound
that was defended

by tanks and machine guns.

Unfortunately,
we didn't know for sure

which house he would be in
on any given night,

and so the odds of
the raid being successful

were even less than 20%.

And it was canceled.

As the hunt for
Bin Laden becomes more intense,

the FBI tracks down
two crucial witnesses.

Both had been close to Bin Laden
since the 1980s.

The things that started
coming out were incredible.

The psychological games
that are played,

I have to tell you,
I never had more fun in my life.

Their interrogations
will go on for years.

But the witnesses start
to give vivid details

of Bin Laden's operations
and his personality.

He was a hypochondriac.

He was a mama's boy.

He was very close
to his birth mother.

It's extremely organized.

There are membership lists,
there are employment contracts.

He slept
two or three hours a night,

he was very careful
about what he ate.

There are benefits,
there are agreements,

there are committees.

Does Bin Laden
wear disguises? Yes.

Does Bin Laden ever
dress as a woman? Yes.

Would he fight if cornered?
Would he commit suicide?

On and on and on.

May 1998.

Bin Laden summons reporters

to hear him issue a new
and more extreme fatwa.

It authorizes
indiscriminate killing

of Americans
and Jews everywhere.

Two days later,

Bin Laden agrees to meet
John Miller of ABC news

at a secret hideout.

Mr. Bin Laden,
you've issued a fatwa

calling on Muslims
to kill Americans,

where they can, when they can.

He uses the interview
to issue menacing threats.

What Bin Laden
had done...

Master manipulator that he was,
very smart individual...

He summoned the press
because he felt

it was the cheapest, easiest way
to get his message out.

Over the next decade,

Bin Laden will use TV
with increasing skill

to spread his message.

He needs his time
on the air.

He needs his time in the columns
of the newspaper,

because that's what they use
in order to recruit people,

people who feel, you know,

that there is a big conspiracy
against Islam.

That's Bin Laden.

He was like one of the masters,

you know,
in the Islamic movement,

you know, in terms of branding.

He was responsible, like,
personally, you know,

for branding Al Qaeda.

August 7, 1998.

The gathering storm of
Bin Laden's threats

breaks with devastating force
in Africa.

Bombs rip apart
America’s embassies

in the cities of Nairobi
and Dar es Salaam.

258 people die,
more than 4,000 are injured.

Why?

Why would you do that?

We had no doubt
in our minds

that Bin Laden was
behind the attack,

we had no doubt in our mind

that Al Qaeda strike
the United States.

We saw that as "uh-oh,"

we are now in some sort
of global conflict here

with a person who's out
to do us serious damage,

and this is probably
just the beginning.

That was the, the real pivot
out of the '98 bombings,

was "we are at war."

But the hunt is still
being pursued by America

not as a war,
but as a criminal case.

Mark Rossini
flies out to Nairobi

as part of the FBI
investigating team.

I can't wait
to get on the ground

and start investigating this.

I've got to see the crime scene,
I've got to get there,

I've got to feel it,
I've got to touch it.

FBI investigators
track down a terrorist

who was in the bomb truck,
Mohammed Al Wali.

Astonishingly,
the 21-year-old Al Wali,

a well-educated Saudi from
a prominent merchant family,

has survived
the suicide bombing.

He began running away
and was hit by the blast

and had all kinds of lacerations
and cuts on his back.

We had conducted investigations
at all the hospitals.

That led to the capture
of Al Wali.

He's asked, "you killed
a lot of Muslims

and Kenyans in the street
rather than Americans.

And you did it on a Friday,
the holy day."

And he said,
"well, all those good Muslims

should have been in the mosque,

so I did them a favor,
essentially, by killing them,

and they actually
deserved to die."

He didn't want
to look at the pictures

of the innocent civilians
that were killed at first,

he wouldn't look at them.

Finally we got him
to look at that,

and that's when he confessed.

The FBI investigators
discover that Bin Laden

began planning the embassy
bombings as far back as 1993

when he sent an Al Qaeda spy
to Nairobi

to take photographs
and draw up plans.

Bin Laden then personally
approved the attack,

but delayed the operation until
he had left neighboring Sudan.

The planning
for the embassy bombing

was done five years
before the fact,

which is just shows you
how insidious they are.

That's when
my eyes were opened

as to how vast
and structured this was.

Al Qaeda operatives
are now proliferating

beyond Africa
and the middle east,

right across Europe.

Anti-terrorism specialists
struggle to keep track of them.

And then of course
you get angry and say,

"someone's got to be brought
to justice, this cannot go on.

Someone must go to jail
for this behavior,"

and that's what drives you,
to right the wrong.

No matter what it takes,

we must find those responsible
for these evil acts

and see that justice is done.

The people who
perpetrated those acts

were a new type of enemy,

so how do we go after them,
was the real question.

A few days after
the embassy bombings in Africa,

there's a sudden and
unexpected opportunity

to strike at Bin Laden.

An urgent CIA briefing reports

that he will be meeting
Al Qaeda leaders

in an Afghan training camp.

The United States now moves
from criminal investigation

to military action.

Today I ordered
our armed forces

to strike at
terrorist-related facilities

in Afghanistan and Sudan.

President Clinton orders
operation infinite reach...

The firing of scores
of cruise missiles

at Bin Laden's training camps.

He also targets a suspected
chemical weapons factory

in Sudan.

Our target was terror,
our mission was clear...

To strike at osama Bin Laden,

perhaps the preeminent
organizer and financier

of international terrorism
in the world today.

Unfortunately,
we learned

from intelligence later on

that we missed him
by about two hours.

It was close, but no cigar.

Down, down, USA!
Down, down, USA!

Down, down, USA!

The price of failure is immense.

In Pakistan and Sudan, furious
crowds rage against America.

President Clinton is
bombarded with accusations

that he ordered the strike
to distract attention

from his affair with white house
intern Monica Lewinsky.

And the suspected Khartoum
chemical weapons plant

proves to be an innocent
pharmaceutical factory.

The hunt for Bin Laden
loses its focus.

Military action is shelved.

At the very moment
America understands

the scale of Bin Laden's threat,

it has become much more
difficult to stop him.

I think it led Bin Laden
to believe

that we weren't serious
about this so-called war

that had been declared
by our adversary.

New York, November 1998.

The hunt for Bin Laden reverts

to being primarily
a criminal investigation.

The superseding indictment

charges osama Bin Laden...

Following
interrogations by the FBI

of two captured embassy bombers,

at last, American authorities
have the evidence

to indict Bin Laden
for mass murder.

...Maximum sentences
of life in prison

without the possibility
of parole or death.

Bin Laden is beyond
the reach of the indictment,

secure in Afghanistan.

What changed
after the 1998 bombings

was Bin Laden no longer
stayed in one place.

He started moving
around Afghanistan.

And so one of the difficulties

was to try to keep track
of where he was.

By 1999, the Taliban
are ruling Afghanistan,

and Bin Laden is more
protected than ever.

Amid the chaos of tribal war,

CIA chief Gary schroen meets up

with the leader of the
anti-Taliban northern alliance,

Ahmad shah Massoud.

He was probably
the most charismatic

and brilliant
military commander.

He was a poet
and a great strategist.

Schroen seeks the help
of commander Massoud

and his closest advisor,
Massoud Khalili,

in tracking down Bin Laden.

Commander massoud was saying

my message to America
is "help us."

Osama Bin Laden and others
are coming.

"America, wake up."

It was as clear as the light
of the morning.

We ended up
sending in CIA teams

into the northern alliance.

We were interested because
Bin Laden was reported to travel

and frequently did
come close to places

where they might have
been able to get him.

The northern alliance
tracked Bin Laden

to a desert hunting camp.

And so some people
in the CIA

said, "so let's blow up
the desert camp."

This is where we
began to get these questions

of where is Bin Laden
actually sleeping?

Well, you know, ok,
then it got down to,

well, when does he go to
the bathroom and where?

The Arab Gulf expert

said royal families
from the Gulf

fly into these places
to go hunting this time of year.

They could be members
of the royal family,

they could be
very wealthy businessmen.

If we kill a lot of them,

this could damage
our relationship with them.

The CIA director said,

"well, we're not blowing up
a hunting camp,"

and that was that.

My first reaction was anger,

because I thought
now this is a chance,

we really have a chance
to kill this guy.

I'm convinced that he was there

and we missed
a good opportunity.

We should have just gone in
and blasted the whole place,

you know,
and made sure we got him.

The desert camp incident
raises critical questions

about the means America can use
to eliminate Bin Laden.

What is an assassination
and what is military action?

And we got the sort of
bizarre legal opinion

from justice department
and the white house lawyers

that said if we knew

where Bin Laden and
the Al Qaeda leadership were,

we could fly a bomber overhead
and bomb them.

Or we could have a submarine
off the Pakistani coast,

fire cruise missiles and blow up
the facility they were in.

But we couldn't put a bullet
through their head

from a sniper,
because that was assassination.

Following
the embassy bombings

and the indictment of Bin Laden,

President Clinton makes
a crucial decision

which, effectively,
is a license to kill.

Eventually, and through
a long, laborious process,

the president got a document
and signed it

that authorized the CIA
to snatch him,

but if that didn't work,
to kill him.

That was a watershed.

While the United States
hunts for Bin Laden,

an Al Qaeda video finds him
in his Afghan compound.

In 2000, Bin Laden invites
scores of jihadists

to come and discuss the next
stage of the war on the west.

Bin Laden is continuing
to attack the west,

even though at this time
his protector,

the Taliban leader mullah Omar,
to whom he's sworn obedience,

is trying to improve relations
with the United States.

Noman Benotman
confronts Bin Laden.

Okay, how come
you disobey his order

when he ordered you
to stop fighting

and provoking
United States of America?

I faced him with this,
face to face.

And he failed to give me
an answer. He failed.

He said to me, "look, I will
consider all these arguments,

and you're right.

But there's only one mission
I can't cancel, you know,

because it's almost there,

and if we order the cancellation
of this operation,

it will ruin my organization
and demoralize the whole group."

I don't think it's like
rocket science

to figure it out, you know.

It was the 11th of September,
definitely.

On the video of
Bin Laden's jihadi gathering,

two young men are laughing
and sharing ideas.

They are Ziad Jarrah
and Mohammed Atta,

two of the pilots
of the 9/11 planes.

But Bin Laden has a more
immediate shock in store

for America.

October 12, 2000.

An Al Qaeda video proclaims
Bin Laden's latest assault

on America.

Suicide bombers attack
the U.S.S. Cole,

an American destroyer
patrolling the Arabian sea

that has put into harbor
in Yemen.

17 sailors are killed
and 39 injured.

We can see
the African embassy bombings

and the Cole as opening acts
of a very bad play

that occurs on 9/11.

An FBI team is
sent out to investigate,

led by Ali Soufan.

You smell death, literally.

Bodies were still
wrapped in the metal.

The explosion created
such a force

that the floor literally
folded like a carpet.

And many of the sailors
were still trapped.

If you look who we sent
in to look at the aftermath,

the Cole, a heavy FBI presence,
and this is a crime.

We didn't view that as war.

If we had viewed it as war,
we'd have probably had

a different approach
and a response.

To the criminal
investigators on the ground,

it's clear that war
should have been declared

on Bin Laden long ago.

What was the military
response to Mogadishu?

We pulled out.

What was the military response
to Nairobi and Dar es Salaam?

We fired a couple of
cruise missiles

and killed a couple of bums
on the ground.

Nobody important.

What was the military response
to the Cole? None.

None, zero.

That was an act of war.

Bin Laden had declared war
on the United States

in August of 1996,
and he meant it.

And we knew,
the ones that worked on it,

knew that he meant it.

And nobody else believed us,

but after the Cole,
they didn't believe us.

They treated the Cole like
somebody had done a carjacking.

The Cole
was a quagmire,

because it involved a tremendous
commingling of agencies

in the U.S. government
having their own little battle.

Information sharing,
compartmentalization,

- turf, rules...
- All this went into play.

Working inside the CIA
and FBI joint operation

to hunt down Bin Laden,

Mark Rossini is shocked to find
that investigations

are becoming entangled
in bureaucratic reluctance

to share information
between agencies.

He gets a phone call
from FBI colleague Ali soufan

who's in Aden
alongside the U.S.S. Cole.

He's in the water
next to the boat

with the hole in it.

And he calls me
and I'm at my desk,

and he says, "hey, Mark,
what do you have on so-and-so?"

Rossini gives his colleague

information about a suspect.

He's careful to conceal details
that might be intercepted.

I get a tap
on my shoulder.

I had passed CIA information on
an undisclosed line to the FBI

without authorization.

And they wanted to remove me
from the building that moment,

take me, escort me
out of the building,

take my clearances away,

and have me taken
out of the building.

I'm calling an FBI agent
in the field

Who is investigating an attack,

and you want to shove
the rules up my

There's a reason
for these turf wars

that goes beyond
professional rivalry.

It's known as "the wall"...

It's known as "the wall"...

An American policy
that prohibits

the passing of information
collected by the CIA

in foreign operations

to the FBI, whose role
is to build a case

on evidence that can be brought
before a U.S. court.

Then they made me
sign a document

that said that I cannot tell
the FBI anything

about what I learned in the CIA

without written explicit
permission from the CIA.

I could not utter it,
I could not e-mail it,

I could not even say it
in a passing conversation,

anything I learned in the CIA
when I was working there.

Bin Laden's
challenge to America

is exposing basic dilemmas
at the heart of a democracy...

Protecting individual Liberty
is weakening its defenses.

The terrorist
target is a peculiar blend

of foreign and domestic,

of law enforcement and
intelligence-based information.

We, historically,
in the United States

have built up an approach

that we're going to
protect our liberties

by keeping those
Intel guys at the CIA

away from these
law enforcement guys.

Now we were playing
against an adversary

who could only be defeated

if we blended those streams
of information.

I, George Walker bush,
do solemnly swear

that I will faithfully
execute the office

of president
of the United States.

Three months after
the attack on the U.S.S. Cole,

George W. Bush is sworn in

as 43rd president
of the United States.

So help me god.

Outgoing
President Clinton tells bush

that terrorism will be
his top priority.

But for the new administration,

Bin Laden and the threat of
Al Qaeda seem less urgent.

Remember,
the word "terrorism"

was not even in the president's
inaugural address.

They were concerned about
ballistic missile defense.

And terrorism was not
very well understood.

The most
disturbing thing

was the national security
advisor saying,

you know, "I worked in
the white house eight years ago,

and we didn't have this big
counter-terrorism office

that you run now.

Why is it here?"

They had missed the growth
of this new set of threats.

In 2000,
a new stealth technology

enters the hunt for Bin Laden...
The predator drone...

A pilotless spy plane controlled
from thousands of miles away.

At last there is
the prospect of spotting

America’s most wanted man
in time to take action.

With the predator,
we could look in real time

at a target in Afghanistan.

And we could look,

and actually on one occasion,
see Bin Laden.

Bin Laden may
occasionally be visible,

but he remains out of reach.

In 2001, the hunters
grow more alarmed

as the drumbeat intensifies

of threats from Al Qaeda
and Bin Laden.

As we approached
the summer of 2001,

the spike in intelligence
we collected,

the volume, the accuracy,
as well as the stridency,

kept going up and up and up.

Al Qaeda was
stepping up its tempo,

it was getting bigger,

it was getting more muscular,

it could pull off attacks all
around the world simultaneously.

I went to brief my boss,

and it was his determination

that we go to the white house
immediately.

You know in the movies,
where you pick up the phone

and call the white house,
"we're coming over."

It was the first time
he'd ever done it.

I do not think
I have participated

in a more forceful,
more specific,

more well sourced, clear
briefing of the threat picture

that the United States faces.

August 6th.

The president's daily briefing
is headed,

"Bin Laden determined
to strike in U.S."

September 9th,
Ahmed shah massoud,

America’s crucial ally
in the hunt for Bin Laden

is assassinated
in an Al Qaeda suicide attack.

Two Arabs came,

pretending they were
journalists,

I was there with him,
two, three, four people

with the camera,
and the man had all bombs.

And in five minutes,
he was out of this world.

I thought, oh, my god,

this is, you know,
a disaster for the country,

it's a disaster for us, the U.S.

That same day,
September 9th,

the 9/11 hijackers' leader,
Mohammed Atta,

writes to his team,

"you are on your way
to everlasting paradise."

The phone rang.
"Bad news chief."

We just had a plane crash
into an upper floor

of the world trade center.

At that instant, I thought
this could be the start.

It's just a huge explosion.

And then
the second plane hit.

The hair on
the back of my neck stood up,

and I knew then,
this is a terrorist attack.

This is Bin Laden.

Mayday, mayday!

There's another plane hit
the second tower, okay.

Everybody
in the room said "Bin Laden."

B-3, a major collapse
in one of the towers.

What we all thought
on 9/11 was,

in some very large extent,
we'd failed.

In the back
of our minds that day,

and certainly thereafter, was
a sense of desperation in a way,

a sense that
this didn't have to be.

It was because of
the imperfections

of the American government.

The government had been unable
to take in information,

process it, and act on it,

and because it had been
unable to do that,

this awful event,
that was avoidable,

had happened.

The fact that
we had seen it coming

made it all the more painful.

For the investigators
who have been pursuing Bin Laden

for almost a decade,

the tragedy of 9/11 raises
anguished questions.

I was really kind of,
what did we miss?

What did we miss?

Ali soufan is finally
allowed to see evidence

linked to the 9/11 hijackers

that has been held until now
by the CIA.

It's basically
information

that we had been asking for
since November of 2000.

Then I start reading a report,

and I...I'm like,
you have to be kidding me.

I remember I just ran
from that office

to a bathroom in the hallway.

And I just threw up.

Soufan discovers
that the identities

of two of the 9/11 hijackers,

and the fact that they had
arrived in America,

have been known by the CIA since
the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole

but not released to the FBI.

It's the culmination
of divisions

that have so damaged
the hunt for Bin Laden.

I still don't understand why
the information was not passed.

I still don't understand
why our requests

were repeatedly ignored.

I don't understand it.

I...I don't know.

I do think
that we could have been

right in the middle
of that conspiracy

if we had, if several people had
done what I see to be their job.

If information was shared,

9/11 could have been
intercepted.

On September 14, 2001,

president bush comes
to ground zero.

I can hear you, the rest
of the world hears you,

and the people...

And the people who knocked
these buildings down

will hear all of us soon.

USA! USA! USA!

Four days after
the 9/11 attacks,

president bush summons
his top officials

to plan the nation's response.

We went out
to camp David for a discussion

on carrying out some type
of a military operation

against the Taliban and
Bin Laden in Afghanistan.

But in the middle of
all this discussion,

we get a chiming in from,

I think it was
secretary Wolfowitz,

about going after Iraq,

and that we ought to make this
part of our plan, as well.

And the president said,
"let's wait on that, hold that,

we're not going to do that."

Gets a little bit irritated,

and I call it firing
a high explosive round

across the table
into Wolfowitz' chest,

saying, forget it,

we're going to concentrate
on the real enemy right now,

which is the Taliban
and Bin Laden.

And if he thinks
he can hide and run

from the United States
and our allies,

he will be sorely mistaken.

From now on,
the hunt for Bin Laden is a war.

A new law, the patriot act,

will require all agencies
to share information.

President bush agrees
to adopt a CIA plan.

CIA paramilitaries will link up
with anti-Taliban guerrillas

of the northern alliance.

CIA veteran Gary schroen
finds his life transformed

by president bush's promise
to pursue Bin Laden.

I went home on 9/11

thinking that
here I was retiring,

and that I would, you know,
miss this fight

that I had, in a sense,
been already fighting for years,

that I was going to miss it.

I got a call saying,
"come in to the office,"

and I met Cofer black, who said,
"we want you to take a team in

and link up with
the northern alliance,"

and I said,
"thank you very much,

I will be happy to do that."

And so out of everybody
in the country

who wanted to do something,

I was the guy picked to start
this, you know, the fight back.

Cofer told the president that
you're going to get this guy.

He said, "ultimately, I want you
to find Bin Laden, kill him,

and cut off his head,
put it on dry ice,

and ship it back to me,

and I am going to take it down
and show the president.

And the other guys, kill them,
cut off their heads,

and put them on pikes."

And I said, "well, that's about
as clear an order

as I've ever gotten
in the organization."

And I said, "well, pikes
we can probably improvise,

but I don't know
what we're going to do

about dry ice, cofer."

Arriving in Afghanistan,

schroen contacts the man closest

to America’s murdered northern
alliance ally, massoud khalili.

And I said,
"Gary, thank you for coming,

but you're late...
I lost my friend."

In the mountains
of northern Afghanistan,

the CIA's jawbreaker team
is ready to spearhead

the hunt for Bin Laden.

We sent the first
communication back

that said jawbreaker's in place,
and we're open for business.

For the jawbreaker team,
"business" includes

handing out bags
full of dollar bills

to win the support of their
northern alliance partners.

The main motivation
for them is money.

It's like a suitcase
full of money

or a duffel bag full of money
that you had to tote around

or drive around in a truck
and pass 'em over to them.

What the CIA brought to it

was the knowledge of the terrain
and the people,

and to provide inducements
to tribals to work with us.

What the military
was able to provide

was lethal power that
we did not have,

with the capacity
of special forces,

to direct very lethal weaponry

on to targets
that we could identify.

The Taliban refuse
to hand over Bin Laden.

On October 7th,

America begins the bombing
of Taliban-controlled Kabul.

We couldn't actually
see Kabul from where we were at,

but you could see
the bomb flashes

on the underside of the clouds.

We'd just put up
a satellite dish

that the guys had
built from scratch.

CNN comes on,
and they turn it up,

and it's like, "bombing has
started in Kabul."

It was like,
oh, well, this is great,

let's go down and watch it on
CNN where we can see it better.

So modern war,
it's really great.

On the same day,

a pre-recorded statement
by Bin Laden is released.

He supports the 9/11 attacks,
without claiming responsibility.

After five weeks
of intensive American bombing,

the northern alliance takes
Kabul on November 14th.

But for Bin Laden's pursuers,

there's only a faint hope
he'll still be there.

By the time Kabul fell,

I'm convinced Bin Laden
was long gone.

I think he read
the handwriting on the wall

and said, "I've got to
get out of here,"

and had headed for Tora Bora.

In early December 2001,

the hunt for Bin Laden shifts
to the mountains of Tora Bora.

Just a few miles from
the border with Pakistan,

it's a daunting area of
narrow valleys and peaks

reaching up to 14,000 feet.

Bin Laden seems boxed in.

Will this be his last stand?

Tora Bora was
a place he knew well,

and back in the jihad days,
I think he had a cave system,

so he took shelter there.

It's really going to be
hard for anybody

to come and get Bin Laden
in there.

Tora Bora will become
the most controversial episode

in the long pursuit
of Bin Laden.

Three years after the event,
general Tommy Franks,

commander of American operations
in Afghanistan, will say,

"we don't know to this day if
Mr. Bin Laden was at Tora Bora,"

but the men on the ground
are sure.

Gary Berntsen, a senior
CIA paramilitary commander

replaces his old colleague
Gary schroen

as the jawbreaker unit's top man
in the hunt for Bin Laden.

We knew he was there.

We had enough human intelligence

that had tracked him all along
that we knew where he was.

There was absolutely
no question at all.

America's most
senior general also knows

that this is a decisive moment.

Hey, we think we've got
a chance to go after Bin Laden

and some of his folks
held up in the hills,

this place in the mountains,
this place we call Tora Bora.

Bin Laden's hunters
seem tantalizingly close

to their prey.

But even before
the operation begins,

senior CIA officials
in Washington are alarmed

about the lack of troops
on the ground in Tora Bora

to support a small unit
of delta special forces.

Berntsen is told CIA chiefs
are going to the white house

to request ranger
light infantry troops.

They spoke
to the president,

the vice president and Rumsfeld,

and said, "we need more forces,
we need 800 rangers."

And Rumsfeld's response was,

"no, the Pakistanis
will cover the back side,

and we're using delta force."

General Franks also
rejects the CIA request

to deploy ranger forces.

He insists that helicopters
would have great difficulty

landing rangers in Tora Bora.

He's also been told by
Pakistan's president Musharraf

that his frontier guards
can block escape routes

across the border.

But the murder of
commander massoud

means the CIA has
lost a crucial ally.

They hire two minor warlords,

a former Taliban
and a drug smuggler,

who bring around 2,000 of their
fighters to pursue Bin Laden.

He has more than 1,000
Al Qaeda protectors.

There are fewer than 100

American and British
special forces.

It soon becomes evident that
they and the Afghan mercenaries

are stretched very thin.

What could
we do to continue the fight?

And as we worked our way through
the ability or inability

to get American troops
on the ground,

it really transpired that

the only response that
we could make were with bombs.

In early December,

as many as 100 airstrikes a day
saturate Tora Bora with bombs.

In sight of Al Qaeda snipers,

special forces highlight
the targets with lasers.

Very risky.

They will paint an object
with a laser,

and a plane will throw
an explosive out,

and it will catch and ride
the light into the target.

As people are doing this,
and very bravely,

they are exposed.

The U.S. military
air capability

just pummeled
the Tora Bora area.

I mean, they couldn't have
dropped any more bombs.

On December 9th,

America drops
a 15,000-pound Daisy cutter,

the most powerful
non-nuclear bomb on earth,

last used in Vietnam.

The impact is unclear.

But on a captured radio,

Bin Laden is heard urging
his men to fight on.

And the uneasy alliance between
the allied pursuers

and their local fighters
is not going well.

You have limited forces,

and you have to count on
indigenous forces

that are more or less reliable.

Some are reliable,
some are not going to fight.

Some may fight for a while
and decide to do something else.

On December 10th,
special forces report

that they may have
spotted Bin Laden.

But the Afghan commander hired
to support them retreats,

and his fighters flee
under Al Qaeda fire.

The handful of American
and British special forces

are left alone
in Al Qaeda territory.

There were no more
than 60 Americans

fighting down in Tora Bora.

Bin Laden fled with about 1,000
into those mountains.

There were more journalists than
there were U.S. forces there.

We killed the translator.
We killed the translator.

And the challenge was
how to do all of this

before he got out.

Despite their limited numbers,

a delta force video camera
records Bin Laden's pursuers

closing in on
the main Al Qaeda base.

Special forces monitor
a Bin Laden radio message

saying he has let his men down,

and that they are permitted
to surrender.

We had Bin Laden
on intercept on the radio,

you know praying,
apologizing, dejected...

Telling his people he was sorry
he'd led them in this trap

and that the suffering
that they were having.

And of course, we kept it up,
kept it up, kept it up,

kept at him,
trying to end it.

One of the warlords
supporting the Americans

demands a ceasefire

to allow Al Qaeda fighters
to give themselves up.

The Americans fear a trick,

but are compelled to pause
their operations.

Around 800 Al Qaeda
disappear in the night

across the border into
the wild northwest of Pakistan,

a frontier region
of rival factions

with unlimited places to hide.

The Pakistanis
put some troops

to capture those
that were escaping.

And they did, at some point,
manage to capture

in excess of 100
coming out of Tora Bora.

But then miraculously, within
a very short period of time,

all of those managed to escape.

If we'd had more troops,

we might have been
more successful.

But we didn't.

I went in with
eight men initially,

and there were 1,000 Al Qaeda
in that area.

The problem was this...
Working with indigenous forces

had worked in all other parts of
the conflict up to that point.

We got down to the final piece
of killing Bin Laden,

and we needed to do that
on our own.

One day
in mid December 2001

osama Bin Laden
walks out of Tora Bora

and disappears into Pakistan.

His pursuers are left to
explore his abandoned caves

and reflect on why
his extraordinary escape

was ever allowed.

If I could get a bunch
of civilians in there to fight,

I figured that
the secretary of defense

could get some rangers
in there for me.

I never heard anyone
ask for more forces.

Not one person ever
up the chain of command

ever came to me and said,

"I've got people
asking for more troops."

Never once did anyone say that
there would be any advantage

in doing that.

It's very clear that
had the military attack plan

authorized a ranger unit
to go up

and reinforce
the special forces,

we could have not only
gotten Bin Laden,

we could have gotten
all the leadership of Al Qaeda

that was then about
to flee into Pakistan.

And we wouldn't
have had to suffer

the following 10 years
of Al Qaeda.

The questions
after Tora Bora,

from the disputed conversations
about American troop levels

to Pakistan's role,

remain unanswered to this day.

Tora Bora was a golden
opportunity that was missed.

The hunt for Bin Laden
would have ended,

would have ended it then.

After tora Bora,
the hunt for Bin Laden

drifts into a decade
of frustration.

A $27 million reward and a major
military operation in 2002

fail to produce any evidence
of the world's most wanted man.

Faced with uncomfortable
questions about Bin Laden,

the white house downplays
his importance.

George Bush
went from saying,

"I am going to get Bin Laden
dead or alive,"

to actually saying, "well,
he's not all that important."

I don't know where he is.

I just don't spend
that much time on him really,

to be honest with you.

The reason for that

was that they had no
intelligence on where he was.

For America’s
counter-terrorism specialists,

Bin Laden remains
an agonizing challenge.

Bin Laden hung over

the entire counter-terrorism
enterprise like a specter.

There was never a period where
counter-terrorism operatives

stopped looking for trails
to get to Bin Laden.

If you're trying to
catch a chicken in the barnyard,

and you're running after it,
are you close?

Not until you've caught it.
And we haven't.

October 2002.

The bombing of a nightclub
in Bali is a shocking reminder

that Bin Laden and Al Qaeda
are a continuing threat.

It's only the first of many
attacks around the world

in the years that follow.

Bin Laden was
the galvanizing figure,

the charismatic character,

who actually drove, not only
the founding of Al Qaeda,

but its morphing into
most corners of the world.

As Al Qaeda terror
spills out around the world,

Bin Laden remains beyond
the reach of his pursuers.

Bin Laden himself
was very good

in terms of
operational security.

There was no use
of electronic media.

He did everything possible
to remain hidden,

not just from
western authorities

or counter-terrorism officials,

but also in many ways
from his own people.

Frustratingly, we were not close
to finding him.

Baghdad...

March 19, 2003.

The bush administration
turns its sights

towards its long-time enemy,
Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

The invasion distracts attention
from the hunt for Bin Laden.

There's no doubt
that the shift to Iraq

took a lot of the energy out of
the effort to capture Bin Laden.

From the CIA point of view,

we didn't have enough
of our best people

and most knowledgeable people

who were engaged
in the effort anymore.

They were being shifted to Iraq.

There was a sense that

we weren't looking
for Bin Laden anymore,

that we had lost focus,
that we had lost interest.

Bin Laden continues
to taunt America

with video pronouncements.

In 2004, he accepts
responsibility for 9/11

and condemns America’s response.

Frankly,
it was very frustrating.

I mean the president would say
to me, "so, Mike, where are we?"

"Mr. President, nothing new."

"Well, you are working on it?"
"Yes, sir, we really are."

And I knew exactly
what he meant.

Where are we on the hunt
for Bin Laden?

But the trail was cold.

When I say the trail was cold,
I mean the trail was cold.

There was a chart that
was prepared for the president

that basically showed
Al Qaeda's leadership.

The president took
to keeping that chart,

because it was a way
of keeping track

of who was still outstanding.

And he would just Mark off
as we went along

so that he knew
who we still had left.

And of course, the name
that was still on there

with no "x" through it
was Bin Laden.

It's at
the Guantanamo detention center

that the hunt for Bin Laden

finally makes
the crucial breakthrough.

Interrogations of
Al Qaeda suspects suggest

that a mysterious figure
known as "Al Kuwaiti"

who escaped from tora Bora
with Bin Laden

may be working as his courier.

Based on information
that we'd gotten from detainees,

folks came in to me in 2007

and said, "we think
we can go after Bin Laden

by tracing the courier network."

It had to be
a system of couriers

that was being used in order
to effect communications

between Bin Laden,
wherever he was,

and his organization.

There had to be
some sort of a system

that would permit him to get

audio tapes, video tapes,
out to his people,

and maybe engage in a little bit
more direct communication

with members of
his own organization.

Until we got
on the trail of the couriers,

any instinct that we had
a lead on Bin Laden,

in retrospect, looked a lot more
like Elvis sightings

than it does hard intelligence.

Bin Laden has
outlasted a succession

of American presidents, defying
every effort to track him down.

In October 2008,

as candidates campaign for
the election of a new president,

Barack Obama puts a special
focus on the hunt for Bin Laden.

If we have
osama Bin Laden in our sights,

then I think
that we have to act.

We will kill Bin Laden,
we will crush Al Qaeda.

That has to be our biggest
national security priority.

He basically said,

"I want you to go
after Bin Laden,

Bin Laden is number one enemy
of this country.

I want you to find him
and to bring him to justice."

In the crowded
border towns of Pakistan,

Bin Laden remains a hero.

For months, intensive
electronic investigations

try to track down any hint
of the courier Al Kuwaiti.

At last, in August 2010,

an intercepted phone call made
by Kuwaiti provides the clue

Bin Laden's pursuers
have been chasing for years.

"I am working with the people
I was with before," he says.

Now the trail to Bin Laden
is opening up.

There was this
very important lead

with regards to the couriers,

and almost immediately,
it raised great suspicions.

In August 2010,

CIA agents spot
Al Kuwaiti's car,

and it's driving
in an unexpected direction.

Rather than heading
for the wild territory

along the border
with Afghanistan

where Bin Laden's pursuers have
long suspected him to be hiding,

Al Kuwaiti heads for Abbottabad,
a prosperous regional town

and the base for a top
Pakistani military academy.

Bin Laden's courier drives
to a compound in the town

where a large three-story house
is protected behind high walls.

My first reaction

when they described
the compound in Abbottabad

was that we had something
very unusual.

Leon, and
a few others, CIA briefers,

came in and explained
to the president

that we now, we may in fact
have identified a location

where Bin Laden
might be holed up.

CIA agents
move into houses

overlooking
the mysterious compound,

observing how the occupants shun
all electronic communications

and burn their own garbage.

Even cricket balls hit over
the walls are kept and burned.

The number of people
that we saw in the compound

seemed to match the number
of family members

that might be with Bin Laden.

We had probably the best clue
as to the possibility

that Bin Laden would be there
since tora Bora.

The president is
briefed regularly,

but all information
is tightly controlled.

The number of people
that knew

about the Bin Laden compound

was incredibly small for
a very long period of time.

But there were additional
precautions taken.

The topic of the meeting
was never listed,

the cameras that are usually on
in the situation room

were turned off.

And it kept very tight,

I think in the neighborhood of,
you know, a dozen people

for a very long time.

As local agents
keep watch over the compound

for any sign of Bin Laden,

he is never detected.

We were hoping
that there would be

more definitive information
that Bin Laden was there,

and we never really
got that information.

Nobody was going to be able
to say, "ah-ha,

we have the piece of evidence
that can give us certainty

that he's there."

The most wanted man on earth

remains shut away in his room,

unaware that his pursuers are
tightening the net around him.

In Washington, the president's
advisors begin to explore

ways of mounting a mission to
get Bin Laden once and for all.

Once the intelligence

had reached a point
where there was at least

a higher confidence level
about the possibility,

the next question we asked was
what should we do operationally?

The president
was the one who said

start to pull together the
options that might be available.

"I don't want to wait,

because this could be, in fact,
a fleeting target."

The closer you got
to the operation,

the more you started
to contemplate

all the things
that could go wrong.

The terrible memory

of the black hawk down disaster
in Somalia

is impossible to avoid.

So is the failed attempt to
rescue U.S. hostages in Iran

in 1980, which fatally damaged
Jimmy Carter's presidency.

Leon panetta said, "look,

we've been trying to get
this guy for 15, 20 years, okay.

We missed him at tora Bora.

This is clearly the best
intelligence we've had

leading us to Bin Laden
since tora Bora.

We can't make the mistake

of not going full tilt
against it again."

On march 14, 2011,

President Obama
summons his advisors

to a meeting in the white house.

The president
went around the table

and asked every one of
his advisors for their advice

as to whether or not
to go into Abbottabad.

There were essentially
three options.

One option was to go forward
with a special forces raid.

Another option was to take a
missile strike at the compound.

The third option was to wait and
try to gather more intelligence.

The focus ultimately
fell on the raid option

in order to not only
be able to go in,

but to determine whether,
in fact, it was Bin Laden.

Seal team six
goes into intensive training

simulating an attack

on a replica of
the Abbottabad compound.

The seals still don't know
their target.

But their commanders have chosen
his code name...Geronimo.

The week leading up
to the actual operation,

every day we had meetings in
the white house situation room,

we had meetings
with the president.

It was almost a nonstop effort

from the morning
to late at night.

Finally,
President Obama must make

a momentous and politically
critical decision...

Go or not go.

The president said
he was going to go back

and think about it overnight.

He took this all on himself
that night.

He came down the next morning
and said just, "it's a go."

Please welcome
the president

of the United States of America,

Barack Obama.

The night before the raid

is the annual white house
correspondents dinner

in Washington.

The president's Bin Laden team
has to attend

to avoid arousing
awkward questions.

If suddenly the seniormost
national security officials

in the government
all canceled in unison

on the people who were supposed
to be taking them to this dinner

who happened to be the most
influential journalists in town,

that would raise suspicions,

and that would send people
chasing information.

The decision was

let's just go ahead
and play it straight.

It was very strange
to go to that dinner

and to look at the other people
in the room,

none of whom knew

this momentous thing was going
to happen the next day,

and to occasionally see
somebody who did know,

you kind of make eye contact,

and suddenly it hit you
like a ton of bricks

that tomorrow is, you know,

one of the most important
days of your life.

Meanwhile, you're at this
kind of absurd Washington party.

People think Bin Laden
is hiding in the Hindu kush,

but did you know that every day
from 4 to 5

he hosts a show on c-span?

But I have to tell you,

every time somebody made a joke
about Bin Laden,

I couldn't help but think,

"if only the people in this room
know what the hell I know."

We came in
Sunday morning,

we had to cancel all the tours
in the white house.

We ordered food for the day,

prepared for several hours
in the situation room.

And then
the president joined us,

and it was a period
of such intensity.

Many parts of that last day
are etched on my mind

and will be forever.

We waited,
and it was very tense,

because you want to be
doing something,

but we really realized

that it was out of our hands
at that point.

As the president's team waits

on that Sunday morning
in the white house,

it's evening in Abbottabad.

Since it was
a covert operation,

I was designated as the person
to oversee the operation,

so we basically set up
an operations center at the CIA,

and we maintained contact
with admiral Mccraven,

who was in Afghanistan
overseeing the operations.

And we were getting
regular reports,

and we were feeding those
back to the white house.

It was risky, because
it did involve an operation

that had to go a long way
into Pakistan.

We clearly had to track it
every step of the way.

When the helicopters
reached Abbottabad,

the first thing we heard

was that they had
a significant problem

with one of the helicopters,

it was essentially going down.

The thing that we all dreaded,

some kind of helicopter
incident, was happening.

That was the first piece
of information we had.

You see something
that involves some of the fears

about what could
possibly go wrong...

Suddenly, all of those fears
are coming true.

Suddenly we're thinking

that this operation
is going sideways,

there's going to be
potential U.S. casualties.

There was a real sense
of deep anxiety in the room.

It was totally silent,

people just hanging on every
word from bill Mccraven

or Leon panetta.

When admiral Mccraven
indicated a kind of, you know,

this is not a problem, these
guys are going to do the job,

it gave me a sense
of confidence.

We were very relieved
when it was reported

that everyone was off safely,
the operation is going forward.

There was a long period

after they'd gone
into the compound.

We had heard that
shots had been fired.

We really weren't quite sure
what was happening.

It was a good 15 or 20 minutes
of silence

in the sense of what exactly
was going on in there.

Those were very long
and torturous moments...

Waiting for the word.

And the code word Geronimo
came across.

I remember that being a moment
of extraordinary relief,

because we never knew
that this figure

that we had traced to this
compound was Bin Laden.

All of the months
of gathering intelligence,

all of the operations,

all of the questions
suddenly were answered

in that moment
when we heard Geronimo.

There was kind of
an audible exhaling

of everybody in the room.

And then the president just
said, "we got him, we got him."

The United States
has conducted an operation

that killed osama Bin Laden.

Justice has been done.

On February 25, 2012,

Pakistani security forces began
demolishing Bin Laden's house.

What was a surprise
was that

it frankly took as long as
it did to finally get Bin Laden.

You would have hoped that
we could have done it earlier.

My reaction was,
you know, if I ordered a pizza

and it came 10 years
after I ordered it,

I wouldn't be too delighted.

It really did
bring home the message

that we will come and get you.

You don't sleep better
because he's gone.

What you worry about
is who takes his place.

The fact that
he's dead, I think, is fine.

The world's a better place
with osama Bin Laden not here.

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