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The Words The SEAL Killing Osama bin Laden Radioed Home

Kompas.com - 02/08/2011, 14:48 WIB

A specially-selected team of 23 SEALs spent two weeks painstakingly going over the mission, first at a replica of the compound build in a heavily-forested area in North Carolina, and then at a desert in Nevada.

The team would split into two, each half flown in from Afghanistan on specially-adapted Black Hawk helicopters, covered with radar dampening 'skin' and other features designed to hide heat, sound and movement so they could enter Pakistani airspace undetected.

The 24th member of the team was Ahmed, a translator who had been taken from a desk job and had never before descended a fast rope the SEALs would use to enter the compound. He soon learned.

Also on board would be Cairo, a Belgian Malinois dog who would stay with Ahmed as he patrolled the perimeter and kept neighbours out. Throughout, the mission - codenamed Operation Neptune's Spear - remained a covert CIA plan, so the White House could distance itself if it went wrong.

On April 26, the SEALs flew out to Afghanistan via Germany. On the same day, Panetta held that crucial meeting with CIA officials. The following day he briefed Mr Obama and his security advisers, and the next day the president gave McRaven the go-ahead in Afghanistan, telling him to choose the night. McRaven selected Sunday, May 1.

The president spent the next morning playing nine holes of golf, while staff turned the Situation Room into a war room - and ordered sandwich platters from CostCo.

Staff set up a video link to Panetta at CIA headquarters, and McRaven in Jalalabad. There were two more command centres at least, one at the Pentagon and another at the American Embassy in Islamabad. Obama joined his advisers around a conference table in the room at 2pm, half an hour before the Black Hawks took off from Jalalabad.

45 minutes later, four back-up Chinooks left the same airport deployed at the last minute after the president said he wanted to make sure the SEAls could 'fight their way out of Pakistan' if necessary. Two remained inside the Afghanistan border in case of emergency, and two more hovered just outside Abbottabad.

The Black Hawk pilots wore night-vision goggles and flew without lights, the SEALs hunkered together in the back. At 4pm U.S. time, Panetta informed the president they were approaching the compound.

Obama immediately stood up, saying 'I need to watch this'. He marched into a small adjoining room, where Brigadier General Marshall Webb had set up the only live videofeed in the White House of the raid, recorded from an unarmed drone flying at 15,000 feet.

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