idea what they re doing. what is the technology that allows them to deliver a video feed from where they are operating in pakistan to the white house? it s a very high tech c.i.s. csi operation, technically. what we understand is they were wearing helmet-mounted camera that was allowing the live feed to go back in. to give you a sense of how on top of this president obama was, the man sitting to the right of him was the number three man brigadier general brad webb. to give you an idea of how hands on this for the president, he also told mccrav echen, godspe very much was involved with micro managing this operation. how much did the exercise against is somali pirates build the president s confidence saying yes, this team can do this? this was the first time we know of that president obama authorized a hit of this nature. i m told by people in the special ops community that it made president obama impressed with the ability of these s.e.a.l.s to execute this mission. and to d
compound in this affluent area, populated by current and former military officers, walking distance to pack stop sign s west point and john brennan said it raises questions. that pakistani officials seemed surprised when they were briefed on it. clearly he had questions on his own mind. he threw that out there that s no small thing to be done from the white house podium. the other really interesting point that came out in the briefings today in the earlier briefing by d.o.d. and c.i.a. and the question came up were pakistani officials informed ahead of time about this operation? the answer was no. think about that for a moment. a military assault operation with helicopters, special forces going into a foreign country, guns ablazing and you don t tell anybody in that foreign country s government, this is supposed to be a u.s. ally. i think that tells a lot about the state of the u.s.-pakistani relationship right now.
what i would point to especially is the cooperation you saw here between the military and the cia. white house officials were very clear that this was a cia commanded operation using s.e.a.l. team six, the special operations group. so a very impressive amount of coordination there. but again it s a contrast to the friction you saw frequently between the rumsfeld pentagon, powell state department in the cia under tenant back then. when you look at your work and bob woodward s work, there seems to be a personal quality to that tension. it doesn t seem to be institutional and traditional. it does seem to be rumsfeld personality-based and others. is that more typical that what we seem to be seeing in the obama administration what is a group of people who seem to get along and respect each other? i think so. you always see institutional frictions, but i think they got very personal in the bush administration.
chuck, the situation was being monitored in the situation room by the president. was pinetta in a separate location at cia headquarters? was he at the same time participating and directing it from cia headquarters? reporter: the person directing the operation is the person that is running that runs that special forces the special forces operation. i want to back up to march 29th. you ve given a great time line. i ll be honest, lawrence, we ve gotten a couple other briefings even in the last few hours. essentially they re doing debriefings of the men who participated in this capture and kill of bin laden. so the story continues town fold. march 29th, the president is offered an array of plans at how to go after bin laden in this compound. he narrows it down to two plans. one is the one that was carried out. the other has not been shared. it was not. he dismissed any idea of using predator drones or any sort of
fitting occasion to do this. obviously, we ve all had disagreements and differences in the past. i suspect we ll have them again in the future. but, last night as americans learned that the united states had carried out an operation that resulted in the capture and death of osama bin laden [ applause ] thank you. you know, i think we experienced the same sense of unity that per prevailed on 9/11. we were reminded again that