Panetta recalls nail-biting raid that killed Osama bin Laden

WASHINGTON — Killing Osama bin Laden was not a “silver bullet” that destroyed Al Qaeda, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said on Friday, but he asserted that his death weakened the terrorist group and made the United States more safe.


In comments ahead of the first anniversary of the raid last May by United States Navy SEALs on Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, Mr. Panetta said that the Bin Laden operation, along with other killings of Qaeda leaders, “has prevented them from having the command and control capability to be able to put together an attack similar to 9/11.”

Mr. Panetta’s remarks were among the first in a series of recollections about the Bin Laden raid by senior Obama administration officials in a tight election year. The officials are highlighting the operation as an example of President Obama’s national security experience in contrast to that of Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and Mr. Obama’s expected Republican opponent.


Mr. Panetta, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time of the raid, was deeply involved in the planning of the C.I.A.-led operation. He made his comments to reporters on a C-17 military transport plane on the way home to Washington from a five-day trip to Colombia, Brazil and Chile.


Speaking to reporters in his Airstream trailer that is strapped to the inside of the C-17 — it is called the “Silver Bullet” — Mr. Panetta recalled what he described as four “nail-biting moments” as the Bin Laden raid unfolded. He and other top C.I.A. officials were watching portions of the raid by live video feed from Pakistan at the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Va., and listening to Adm. William McRaven, then the head of the Joint Special Operations Command and the raid’s commander, describe other parts of the raid as he monitored it from an American military base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. President Obama and other senior national security officials were simultaneously monitoring the raid from the White House.


While al-Qaeda and its offshoots remain a threat, he said, the military and intelligence communities have learned to work better together since Sept. 11, 2001. Still, he acknowledged, there is no single, completely effective way to destroy the terror network.
"The way this works is that the more successful we are at taking down those who represent their spiritual, ideological leadership, the greater our ability to weaken their threat to this country," he said.
The story of the raid is well-known: The SEALs and special operations forces that flew deep into Pakistan; the wrenching moment when one of the helicopters went down in the heat, landing hard with its tail on the wall; the SEALs' assault on the house where they believed bin Laden and his wives had been living for several years; and what Panetta on Friday called the "fingernail-biting moments."
"We knew that there were gunshots and firing, but after that we just didn't know," said Panetta, describing the nearly 20 minutes of silence after the SEALs went into the house.
Then came confusion. McRaven, commander of the operation, told him that he thought he'd picked up the word "Geronimo."
"The way he said it was like, you know, 'We think,'" said Panetta. "It wasn't ideal. We were still waiting."
A few minutes later came the KIA message. Then came the long flight out of Pakistan.

"By that time they had blown the helicopter that was down and we knew we had woken up all of Pakistan to the fact that something had happened," Panetta said with a laugh. "The concern was just exactly what were they thinking and how were they going to respond."
The moment they crossed the border, he said, was "the moment when we finally knew the mission had been accomplished."
Then they could embrace the victory.
The raid created a deep fissure into the already rocky U.S.-Pakistan relations. U.S. officials, including members of Congress, were irate that the al-Qaeda leader had been able to hide — virtually in plain sight — in a Pakistani military town. Some suggested there was at least some knowledge of his hiding place.
Pakistani leaders, meanwhile, were outraged that the U.S. had launched a military mission deep within the country's borders without alerting them, violating their sovereignty. Islamabad's military commanders were embarrassed that the U.S. was able to carry out the raid without being detected.
The bin Laden saga has continued in Pakistan. His three wives and their families were deported early Friday to Saudi Arabia. Officials have said that the wives and as many as eight children and some grandchildren were living in the compound when it was raided.
The anniversary has triggered security warnings for Americans in Pakistan. The U.S. Embassy said its employees would be restricted from restaurants and markets in Islamabad for the next two weeks. While there was no mention of bin Laden, the period includes the anniversary date.