![]() ![]() The tense moments as the raid unfolded half a world away yielded one of the most famous inside-the-room photographs in presidential history, Pete Souza’s portrait of 14 people crammed into a White House Situation Room anteroom-a moment of high drama that included Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and two future current Cabinet secretaries. The bin Laden raid that President Obama greenlit that Friday in late April-code-named Operation Neptune’s Spear-was the culmination of months of intricate preparation that reached across the capital and around the globe, from full-scale SEAL dress rehearsals in North Carolina to deep Washington legal debates over whether the mission would be “kill or capture,” all planned around a small, precise physical model of the Abbottabad compound that traveled back and forth from CIA headquarters in suburban Virginia to the West Wing. And, with a decade’s hindsight, there was another consequential domestic political subplot at work that week, too: On the day between when Obama approved the operation and when SEAL Team Six helicoptered in, the president kept a long-scheduled date at the White House Correspondents Association dinner, where he publicly roasted celebrity real estate developer-turned-TV host Donald Trump for pumping up the “birther” conspiracy theory that he wasn’t a real citizen. But the operation also stands as a fascinating window into the most rarefied zone of presidential decision-making: Barack Obama had sole authority to approve an act with huge consequences and huge risks, one that could easily sink his presidency if it went bad. ![]() Other popular culture, like the movie Zero Dark Thirty, would later center on the years of work by the analysts who traced the elusive bin Laden to his compound. Once his death was announced in a hastily organized late Sunday night presidential address, much of the initial attention focused on the bravery and skill of the SEAL operators who flew in and conducted the attack. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |