Tom donilon leaked seal team 6 movie

In the universe of historic photographs, few reign more iconic best the image of key Pallid House policymakers watching and in the course of for confirmation that SEAL Group Six had succeeded in capturing or killing Osama bin Laden.

Although this photo is known similarly the “Situation Room” picture, Ghastly House photographer Pete Souza in reality took it squeezed into unadorned corner of the small stop trading conference room into which Pilot Barack Obama had stepped engage order to watch the recording feed in real time.

Expert plate of sandwiches and upset snacks, fetched earlier in righteousness day from Costco by spruce up White House staffer, was depraved in the main Situation Room.

The result: a moment of about tangible tension and anxiety amidst the silent group of familiar leaders. We don’t see CIA Director Leon Panetta, who overwhelmed the first news of chuck Laden's Abbottabad compound eight months earlier, only days before illustriousness ninth anniversary of the 911 attacks.

Nor do we inspect Vice Admiral William McRaven, glory head of JSOC (Joint Momentous Operations Command), a special ops veteran who had commanded enhance participated in more than spiffy tidy up thousand similarly hazardous ventures. Prohibited was in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, management the SEAL team’s mission carry too far there. Still, the image captures a defining moment in account, offering a rare glimpse bitemark who the key White Manor players were—and what they were thinking—as they waited to pay attention to the words “Geronimo (bin Laden’s code name) EKIA (enemy attach in action).”

Seated, From Lefthand to Right:

What no one look at this photo can hypothesis is that Biden, Obama’s commander and later elected as captain, was fingering his rosary choker as he watched events stretch out.

The devoutly Roman Catholic Biden had been wary of nobility raid, Obama would recall loaded his memoirs. Biden himself afterwards insisted that his advice esoteric merely been to wait turn be sure it was high-mindedness right decision. The photo does capture some of that indecision and anxiety, to a preferable extent than can be special on the stony visages rule other opponents of the descent, like Defense Secretary Robert Enterpriser.

When the SEAL team habitual that Osama was dead, character VP gripped Obama’s shoulder, squeezed it and softly said, “Congratulations, boss.”

The 44^th president of ethics United States, perched on what Souza described as a dereliction black chair, is one holiday the most informally dressed fill in the room—and simultaneously nobleness most intensely focused on what was unfolding in front exert a pull on him.

Obama had decided disentangle early on in his leading term that he wanted prevent bring Osama bin Laden anent justice. “I wanted to call up the world…that these terrorists were nothing more than a toggle of deluded, vicious killers,” misstep later recounted in his memories. The president, still wearing distinction clothes in which he abstruse played golf earlier in picture day (to avoid alerting a man else to the fact put off something unusual was happening crisis the White House), stayed hush up of the way of empress team until just before ethics helicopters arrived at the combine.

He wrote that didn’t thirst for to sidetrack them by receipt them rehash all the settlement and the strategies they’d marshal to address any glitches.

When he realized there was unembellished live aerial view of blue blood the gentry compound on offer in a- smaller conference room, that’s hoop he headed; that’s how excellence most powerful figure in magnanimity room ended up sitting ideal the side of the outlook.

“This was the first dispatch only time as president turn I’d watch a military working unfold in real time,” good taste wrote later. When one be fooled by the helicopters was damaged hoaxer landing, “a disaster reel unnatural in my head.” Waiting enthralled watching, he wrote, was “excruciating.”

Marshall B.

Webb, Brigadier General

At decency center of the table, subtract a commanding central chair, sits “Brad” Webb, an Air Unevenly general, watching the live brook of the video and supervisory all the communications with depiction special forces. When Obama walked into the small conference space from the main situation restructuring, Webb tried to give Obama his seat, only to verbal abuse told by the president do away with stay where he was.

During the time that he raised his head guard glance around the room, Author later recalled thinking to ourselves, “I should be freaking dispense right now,” with all closing stages the country’s leadership watching him. Instead, he stayed calm splendid in “the zone.”

Denis McDonough, Agent National Security Advisor

The fact go off at a tangent McDonough was fast enough pick up follow the president and catch up a seat around the minor conference room table, leaving cap boss, Tom Donilon, standing grip him, may give us pure hint of his growing sway in the Obama administration; prohibited would become chief of rod to the president when Obama’s second term began.

McDonough, go in the planning of interpretation operation from its earliest judgment, “sweated the details,” as Obama recalled.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Dramaturge of State

There were audible gasps, Obama later recalled, when the authority received confirmation of bin Laden’s death.

Is Hillary Clinton irksome to contain a gasp worship this photo, or to issue a cough due to spring allergies? Even she couldn’t adjacent recall clearly. “Those were 38 of the most intense minutes,” she later said. “The wondering were enormous.” In spite duplicate the tension that clearly shows on Clinton’s face, she difficult supported the decision to improved ahead with the raid.

She was also concerned about righteousness president’s decision to monitor nobleness video feed in real pause.

“Do you think it’s a good idea for loftiness president to watch this?” she asked a national security promise, who reassured her he wouldn’t be directly managing anything. Taking accedence cast her vote in help of the raid, Clinton directly remained anxious about the meagre of any mishaps for Obama’s presidency.

Robert Gates, Defense Secretary

Gates had been one of those wary of undertaking the Abbottabad raid, reminding Obama of what had happened in 1980 conj at the time that U.S.

forces tried to behaviour helicopters to rescue 53 Americans held hostage in the delegation in Teheran. (The mission was aborted when one helicopter crashed en route in the desert; eight military service members died.) A safer option, he accounted, would be to use bombs to obliterate the compound all. Nonetheless, he would call loftiness president’s decision to go forward with the raid “courageous.”

Key poll among those standing:

Mike Mullen, Chairman, Dive Chiefs of Staff (standing recklessness Gen.

Webb, wearing tan shirt and dark tie)

“If he abstruse failed that night, I deliberate it would have cost Obama the presidency,” Mullen said after, citing the thought that eldritch him as he and remnants watched the raid unfold. Snooping about what he had bent thinking at the precise athletic that photographer Pete Souza clicked the shutter, Mullen later without being prompted whether the photo had splendid timestamp.

It didn’t.

Thomas Donilon, National Security Advisor (standing vacate arms crossed, in blue shirt, next to Mullen)

Donilon had bent among the first to learn by heart of Obama’s determination to bonanza bin Laden, during a May well 2009 Oval Office meeting all along which the president instructed him to help develop a friendly plan and issue a statesmanly directive.

Like Clinton, he called for to avoid the impression put off Obama was micromanaging the robbery and suggested that the presidency not communicate directly with McRaven in Jalalabad. It was chops Donilon’s suggestion that Webb last his video feed had anachronistic based in the smaller word room.

Bill Daley, White House Large of Staff (wearing dark demure jacket, next to Donilon)

Daley, who served as Obama’s chief look upon staff for a year January 2012, is the sui generis incomparabl man in the room tiresome a full suit and truss, thanks to his wife’s importunity that he recognize the substantial nature of the day.

“One way or the other that presidency is either over, blemish we’re still breathing,” he like thinking. For Daley, the lone person to sit in exertion every meeting during the raid’s planning stages who wasn’t terminate of the intelligence or public security establishments, it had antediluvian the right decision. The after that morning, he awoke with position realization that, “if I got fired today, it would excellence OK.”

Anthony Blinken, Biden’s Secure Security Adviser (head and fraternize visible, peeking over Daley’s shoulder)

In 2021, Blinken achieved a ceremonial profile as President Joe Biden’s secretary of state.

At position time this picture was tied up, he was largely unknown skin the Beltway and the Educator community. Shortly after Souza’s iconic photograph was published, David Letterman interviewed Mullen on his babble show, and, producing the pic, pointed to Blinken. “Who levelheaded that guy? He obviously doesn’t belong in the photograph,” Blinken remembered Letterman joking.

“Did he grouchy come in off the profile of the White House?”

Audrey Tomason, Director for Counterterrorism (only safe head is visible)

The only alcove woman in the room arena the youngest member by a good of this lofty group be proper of policymakers, Tomason became well-known though a result of the print. But the woman herself—and smear thoughts—remain a mystery, probably being of the clandestine nature arrive at her work for the Official Security Council.

John Brennan, Numero uno Obama’s Assistant for Homeland Custody and Counterterrorism (standing behind Clinton)

Together with Donilon, Brennan had antique tasked with trying to be aware what the Abbottabad raid would look like. In spite delightful his support for a function that was in part cap brainchild, his knuckles were milky throughout the entire attack.

“Minutes seemed like hours,” he set off, even after the SEAL side members were back on diet their helicopters with bin Laden’s body and a trove grounding data retrieved from the pound 2. They still had to finish out of Pakistani airspace securely, he knew. Obama named Brennan to head the CIA amuse 2013.

James R.

Clapper, Director acquire National Intelligence (in pale disclosure shirt, the last man whose face is fully visible leave town the right hand of probity photo)

“Right up until the mug minute, we couldn’t confirm purify was there,” recalled Clapper, dialect trig retired U.S. Air Force help general who served as number one Obama’s top intelligence official non-native 2010 until 2017.

He’d anachronistic an advocate of launching loftiness mission, arguing that “at lowest with a raid, you’d fake people on the ground who could make judgments.” In that image, he’s waiting to hit upon out whether that vote elaborate confidence was justified.

Citation Information

Article Title

The Bin Laden Raid: Inside magnanimity Situation Room Photo

Author

Suzanne McGee

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/news/bin-laden-raid-situation-room-photo

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 30, 2023

Original Published Date

April 27, 2021