At 4:06 p.m. on May 1, 2011 (12:36 a.m., May 2, in Pakistan), the White House's official photographer, Pete Souza, took
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Here's the story behind one of the most iconic photos from the bin Laden raid
"I need to watch this," Obama is said to have remarked, hunkering down in a spare chair in one of the White House's smaller conference rooms.
"I need to watch this," Obama is said to have remarked, hunkering down in a spare chair in one of the White House's smaller conference rooms.
Obama entered the room as one of the two SEAL helicopters crash-landed at the bin Laden compound. "I was thinking that this is not an ideal start," Obama would later tell CNN's Peter Bergen. He described the call to strike the compound as "emblematic of presidential decision-making."
"You're always working with probabilities," he said, "and you make a decision, not based on 100% certainty, but with the best information that you've got."
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All 23 SEALs were unharmed, and the terrorist leader behind the September 11 attacks on the US, Osama bin Laden, was killed.
[Seated in this picture from left to right: Vice President Biden, the President, Brig. Gen. Webb, Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Standing, from left, are: Admiral Mike Mullen, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; National Security Advisor Tom Donilon; Chief of Staff Bill Daley; Tony Blinken, National Security Advisor to the Vice President; Audrey Tomason Director for Counterterrorism; John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism; and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.]
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