And watching it live on video in the White House

Obama watched anxiously as raid on bin Laden’s hideout unfolded

commandos fought their way to the third floor of the villa when the moment of truth arrived. officials shielded behind an unarmed woman. She fell canada goose outlet in new york first. And then so did he. Two shots, one to the head and one to the chest.

Canada Goose Parka This official White House photograph made available May 2 shows President Barack Obama, second from left, and Vice President Joe Biden, left, Secretray of Defence Robert Gates (R) and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, second from right, along with members of the national security team, as they receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the canada goose outlet in usa Situation Room of the White House, in Washington on May 1. (PETE SOUZA / AFP) Canada Goose Parka

And so ended Operation Geronimo and the life of Osama Bin Laden. And watching it live on video in the White House, Barack Obama and his canada goose outlet vancouver security team.

cheap canada goose uk Bin Laden was in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. He was in a city, not a cave. He lived his last months, days and minutes barely a stone’s throw from the Pakistani equivalent to West Point. operation early Monday was a deeply guarded gamble to the very end a gamble so great that “the minutes passed like canada goose sale uk days” in the White House situation room as Barack Obama and his security team watched the events half a world away unfold in real time, braced for calamity. cheap canada goose uk

Even as the elite American ghost team battled its way upstairs to the top of the three storey compound in Abbottabad, there was barely an 80 per cent canada goose outlet factory certainty that they were moments away from the founder of Al Qaeda, the White House said Tuesday. security officials had been weaving the loose strands of intelligence that led to this moment. Strand by strand they came together around an Al Qaeda courier believed to be a proteg of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self confessed deputy mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

canada goose store The Americans canada goose discount uk knew the courier’s nickname. And they knew, from the stone cold silence the mere mention of that nickname invoked during interrogations at Guantanamo Bay, that he was someone worth knowing much better. canada goose store

Finally, from intelligence gathering in “another part of the world,” the courier’s real name was acquired an intelligence breakthrough that would ultimately change everything.

canada goose uk black friday Information on locations, associates and relatives followed. And by August 2010 the crosshairs of suspicion fell on the sprawling, warren of high walls that surrounded the 1,000 square metre home in Abbottabad, Pakistan. canada goose uk black friday

American eyes on the ground were activated. But not, significantly, a single pair of Pakistani eyes. task forces that has tripled in size since 9/11 and reports directly to Obama. Special Forces Navy SEALs, Rangers, Delta Forces, Air Force special ops included.

But Monday’s operation deep inside Pakistan fell to the Navy SEALs vaunted Team Six, a crew that spent as much as a month training at a mock up compound inside a top secret area of Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, Afghanistan. captain of a hijacked tanker off Somalia in 2009.

canada goose coats The stakes weighed largest on Obama, who had been in the loop on the Osama lead since August, but signed off on the operation only Friday, after an intense month of National Security Council meetings dedicated to the issue. canada goose coats

canada goose canadagoosevipca.com Obama kept his poker face throughout. Most memorably on Saturday night, when the president’s reaction was captured for video posterity as Saturday Night Live comic Seth Myers held court during the White House Correspondents’ canada goose outlet hong kong Dinner in Washington, making an inadvertently well timed crack. he hosts a show on CSPAN.” canada goose

Obama’s reaction: An unbroken ear to ear smile. No hint that the lighthearted remark registered anywhere near one of the most difficult decisions of his presidency.

canada goose factory sale As Myers cracked wise, bad weather in Pakistan was forcing a delay. The raid was meant to unfold hours before Obama’s dinner with White House reporters. Now it would go 24 hours later, just after midnight Monday, Pakistan time. canada goose factory sale

canada goose uk shop And this time, weather was not a factor. canada goose uk shop

Navy SEAL Team Six locked in on the compound in Abbottabad aboard two modified Chinook helicopters, along with Black Hawks, and at least two others (possibly more) in support, overseen by anxious overseers watching in real time from Washington. In all 79 commandos and one dog took part.

The walls, one of which soared six metres high, were scaled. And as the SEAL team, augmented by CIA specialists, canada goose outlet in canada bore down on the residential belly of the sprawling triangular complex, a firefight ensued.

The first floor of the three storey compound proved the zone of greatest resistance, officials in Washington said in background briefing Tuesday. That is where most of the 40 canada goose outlet london uk minute battle ensued.

Canada Goose sale That Sunday session at the White House was “probably one of the most anxiety filled periods of times in the lives of the people assembled here,” John Brennan, Obama’s counterterrorism adviser said Tuesday. The worst was when one helicopter landed too close to a brick wall, shattering a rotor. Its occupants were safe, but the machine had canada goose outlet to be blown up. Canada Goose sale

And the minutes passed with all hands on deck. Among those in the room Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defence Secretary Robert Gates, Joints Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen and James Clapper, the White House director of national intelligence.

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