The mission to kill Osama bin Laden was almost called off at the last minute due to a lack of certainty over whether the terrorist leader was living in a Pakistani compound, US President Barak Obama said in a new documentary that has revealed on Thursday.
In his first detailed interview since the al Qaeda leader was shot dead by Navy Seals, US president Barack Obama revealed that he took a gamble and was advised not to go through with the risky operation.
Just days before the May 2 attack, the CIA had advised there was a 60-70 per cent certainty that bin Laden was holed up with his family in a fortified compound in a military suburb of Abbottabad, Pakistan.
But on April 28 a special red team of security analysts advised the President they were only about 30-40 per cent certain it was the worlds most wanted man, due to a lack of evidence and an unusually large number of visitors to the house. A tense White House meeting followed where a number of Obamas highest advisers told him the stakes were too damn high.
Even though I thought it was only 50/50 that bin Laden was there I thought it was worth us taking a shot, Obama said in bin Laden: Shoot to Kill.
If the mission was unsuccessful, the President admitted he faced huge geopolitical ramifications.
In the one-hour documentary that screened on the UKs Channel 4 on Wednesday night (Thursday morning AEST), Americas top security advisers and the President spoke for the first time about the plan to kill bin Laden.
Using cinematic re-enactments, the documentary also offers an inside look into the White House Situation Room, where Obama, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and other officials watched the attack on a live video link.
It was a quintessential presidential decision, National Security Adviser Thomas E. Donilon said of the attack.
It was also one of Obamas most challenging moments, eclipsed only by the near-death of his daughter Sasha from meningitis as an infant.
That was the longest 40 minutes of my life, other than when my daughter got sick at the age of 3 months and we were worried about whether she was going to be safe or not, he said.
The documentary also reveals how an al Qaeda courier known as "The Kuwaiti" led US intelligence sources to bin Laden by traced calls though his mobile.
CIA surveillance of the house showed a man known as the pacer regularly walking in the garden and US experts tried to use the suns shadows to measure if it was the 6ft4 bin Laden.
The program also detailed the Navy Seal's elite Team 6's intense training, including building a replica of bin Ladens compound in the Nevada desert so that soldiers memorised every step and doorway in the house.
But when it was finally confirmed that bin Laden had been killed with shots to the head and chest, there was little celebration inside the White House, the documentary revealed.
This was a big gamble. I think at the time I said something very brief: 'We got him, Obama said.
But there was no whooping, no hollering, high-fiving inside the Situation Room.
At that point all of us were focused on are these guys going to get out safely. Data found inside bin Laden's house revealed he had been planning a terrorism
attack in the US on the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, with Obama as the main target.
Hours after the attack, Obama, yet to receive DNA confirmation that it was bin
Laden, announced to the world that the terrorist mastermind was dead.
Fortunately we were right, he said.
Nation (Islamabad), September 8, 2011, http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Politics/08-Sep-
2011/Obama-reveals-he-took-a-gamble-on-Laden-mission
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