Page 3 - Ci Operation News Today

Laden, can you tell us how close the u.s. has gotten to him in the past beyond tora bora and any other close calls that we have not been informed about? >> well, over the years, and tora bora was the last time that we had actionable and what we thought was credible information about where he was located. a number of leads have been pursued over the years, and this operation demonstrates that there are very, very good people who have been following bin laden for years, and they have been persiste...

In coordinating the operation? >> very personally involved. talking with senior administration officials they do make it clear as one said to me that this was a ci operation, that the cia did all of the detective work, but pretty soon after obama became president in june 2009, he signed a memo ordering his cia director to put a huge effort into finding osama bin laden, and by august of 2010, they kind of knew what they were looking at, but in piecing this together with the administration officia...

Prudent steps afterward to make sure that we have the vigilance up, and we are taking the appropriate measures to make sure that the security posture is strong overseas and here. but there is always a potential for terrorist groups to strike out and avenge an operation like this, but some of them are asking themselves, bin laden is dead, and the al qaeda narrative is becoming increasingly bankrupt, and there is a new wave sweeping through the middle east right now that puts a premium on individu...

Where would he go? if he was killed, what would we do with him and where would he go? and it was determined in the best interest of those involved that the burial take place according to islamic requirements at sea. >> why at sea? >> why? >> why was that a good idea? >> it was determined that there is a requirement in the islamic law that an individual be buried within 24 hours. when inside of pakistan and underwent the operation and he was killed in pakistan. there were certain steps that had t...

And found and the president was relieved once we had our people and those remains off target. >> was it -- was there a visual? or was it just a radio reports or phone reports that you were getting? >> we were able to monitor the situation in realtime and able to have a regular updates and to ensure that we had realtime visibility into the progres of that operation, and i wont go into details about what type of visuals we had or what types of feeds that were there, but it gave us the ability to t...

Bou compound. i would have been enormously surprised given the lack of tru trust, it would have been a huge surprise if the americans had chosen this moment to share the intelligence and their operation with the pakistanis given how they frankly didnt seem to be getting on at all. i think theres an attempt for the pakistani government to try to seem on side, to show they were very much involved, although seems from what were hearing the helicopters turned up undetected. they didnt know it was ha...

Past few weeks with the president sharing five national security council meetings. the final one thursday last week. the following day at 8:20 a.m., as the president prepared to leave the white house for alabama, president obama gave the go ahead for a mission that had been rehearsed for months. on sunday, national security staff worked all day on the operation. a senior administration official says at 2:00 p.m., the president met with his senior staff to review final preparations. at about 4:00...

Neighborhood? >> reporter: i have to say ive not seen it, but the pictures i have seen do suggest the building quite as odds with the rest of the town. not necessarily that central, but very high walls. significant defenses. no apparently communications in terms of telephone or internet. so, yes, perhaps a strange com pound in that busy town. bear in mind were dealing with a city of that size, that many people, buildings arent really going to stand out unless youre aware of the worlds most wante...