Through a Freedom of Information Act request to the Obama Presidential Library, The Washington Post obtained more than 900 portraits taken by official White House photographers on May 1, 2011..
A cache of recently released US government photos reveals key moments inside the White House during the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, including images of top officials shaking hands after learning that bin Laden had been killed.
Images of President Barack Obama calling other world leaders to break the news were also released.
Through a Freedom of Information Act request to the Obama Presidential Library, The Washington Post obtained more than 900 portraits taken by official White House photographers as of May 1, 2011.
Below is a selection of 23 photographs and the moments they captured as recounted in Barack Obama’s book.
On April 29, 2011, Obama authorized a search of the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Intelligence reports had indicated it was the likely location of bin Laden, the al-Qaeda founder who masterminded the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States that killed more than 3,000 people. Due to weather forecasts and a lack of moonlight, intelligence officials set the date for Sunday, May 1.
The president then left Washington for a planned trip, which included a brief tour of the tornado damage in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He flew back to Washington and attended the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, where he made jokes mocking Donald Trump.
The Situation Room becomes a “War Room”«
On May 1, the White House canceled all public tours, including some for celebrities who had traveled to DC for the Correspondents’ Dinner. According to then-CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell, any meeting about the raid was recorded on the White House calendar as a “Mickey Mouse meeting” to avoid scrutiny. The cameras in the room had been turned off or covered. Obama played nine holes of golf that morning, as he used to do on Sundays.
At around 1:00 p.m., National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, National Security Adviser John Brennan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and others entered the large conference room of the Situation Room complex.
At 1:22 p.m., CIA director Leon Panetta gave the order to start the operation. Unable to focus on other work, the president and a small group of confidants played spades in the Oval Office dining room.
14:16 P.M.
Just after 2 pm, as helicopters flew from Afghanistan to Abbottabad, Obama joined his national security team in the Situation Room. In his memoirs covering the period, Obama described the atmosphere as “war room” and “predictably tense.”
Not wanting to mislead his team, the president continued playing cards until just before 3:30 p.m., when Panetta announced that the helicopters were approaching the compound.
When Obama returned to the conference room, he heard the voice of Admiral William McRaven, who was commanding the operation from Afghanistan, and watched live video of the raid in a smaller anteroom. From there, Air Force Brig. General Brad Webb relayed the video and audio feeds to the larger adjacent conference room. As the raid began, Obama told his team, “I need to see this,” and walked out of the conference room to look in the lobby. Webb offered him his seat, but the president told him to “sit down” and pulled up a hard-backed chair.
16:00 P.M.
Obama’s national security team soon got into the room with the president. White House photographer Pete Souza was also in the room, taking pictures with his “butt up against a printer.” At 4:05 p.m., Souza snapped the now-iconic photo of Obama and aides of him staring intently at video of the raid. A document on the desk remains blurred in the version released by the Obama Library. The Library retained 307 photos of The Postdescribing its content as “classified national security information.”
16:05 P.M.
Just a minute after Obama began watching the live broadcast, one of the Black Hawk helicopters became caught in an air vortex and made an emergency landing inside the compound, rendering it disabled. Obama said he felt “a kind of electrical fear.” McRaven, who was describing the events as a “play-by-play” announcer, assured everyone in the room: “Everything will be fine.”
Minutes later, McRaven and Panetta announced almost simultaneously to the president and his national security team, “Geronimo ID’d… Geronimo EKIA,” or enemy killed in action. The CIA and military were later criticized for using the Apache leader as a code name for bin Laden.
As others in the waiting room gasped, Obama said quietly: “We’ve got him.”
16:13 P.M.
Obama shook hands with the team members and walked out of the lobby, still concerned about the SEALs flying into Pakistani airspace.
Bin Laden’s body identified
At around 6:00 p.m., the helicopters crossed Afghan airspace, and Obama “felt some of the tension go away.” In a subsequent meeting in the Situation Room conference room, McRaven, in Afghanistan, told the team that he was looking at the body and that it appeared to be bin Laden. He had asked a SEAL, who was 6-foot-2, to lie down next to the body to confirm that it matched bin Laden’s height of 6-foot-4. Obama quipped: “Seriously, Bill. … All that planning and you couldn’t bring a tape measure.”
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See all the photos below:
2023-04-29 18:10:07
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