S2 [15] SITUATION ROOM: THE OSAMA BIN LADEN RAID

What Really Happened?

Andrew Jenks

Society & Culture

4.5 • 3.4K Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2019

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There have been films and TV shows about the brave and heroic SEAL TEAM 6, and other Marines, that killed Osama Bin Laden and changed history. There is a famous photo that captured President Obama and his team watching the raid from the Situation Room. Secretaries Clinton and Gates, Vice President Biden, and President Obama have all talked in detail about the moments captured in that photo. Now, this episode offers a chance to hear from those in the photo we don’t instantly recognize, and those who were there, but just outside the frame. For those individuals, What Really Happened? Guests: Ben Rhodes (former Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications), Tony Blinken (former Deputy Secretary of State and Deputy National Security Advisor), Nick Rasmussen (former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center), and Pete Souza (former Chief Official White House Photographer) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	What really happened is produced by Dwayne the Rock Johnson, Danny Garcia, Brian Goertz,
0:04.8	Seven Bucks Productions, and Caden's 13. I'm your writer and host Andrew Janks and can
0:09.2	be found on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, at Andrew Janks. Let's get this story started.
0:16.4	Sally Mann once said, photographs opened doors into the past, but they also allow a look
0:22.8	into the future. After the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11th, 2001,
0:28.7	the United States of America spent nearly 10 years and really many years before that,
0:33.4	attempting to track down and kill the man most responsible. Osama bin Laden. On May 1st,
0:40.4	May 2nd in Pakistan, 2011, the United States Navy Seals of the U.S. Naval Special Warfare
0:47.1	Development Group did just that. In an operation, code named Operation Neptune Spear.
0:55.0	Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world. But the United States has
1:00.5	conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda.
1:05.4	There was one photo from that day, which has reached that upper echelon of iconic photos from
1:11.3	U.S. history. Interestingly, the celebrated photo isn't a photo of one of the Navy Seals on the
1:17.1	ground during the operation. It isn't even a photo from the raid. It isn't a photo of a dead
1:23.2	bin Laden, not his body being dumped in the North Arabian Sea, nor a photo captured on some sort
1:28.8	of automatic camera attached to a helicopter from the mission. Instead, what became an iconic photo
1:35.4	from that day in history is a bunch of people squeezed into a conference room. This now iconic photo
1:42.0	is simply titled The Situation Room. During parts of the operation, the President of the United States,
1:48.8	members of his cabinet and other key officials watched in the situation room. I remember when I
1:54.2	first saw this photo thinking, that's the situation room? The room doesn't look like those out of
2:00.8	the television show. You don't see any fancy LCD screens, maps, which are color coded by where there's
2:06.9	the highest chance of war breaking out. I don't know, something that you and I couldn't believe
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