10 Years Later: President Obama and Admiral Bill McRaven reflect on the bin Laden Raid

tonight i can report to the american people and to the world that the united states has conducted an operation that killed osama bin laden ten years after president obama authorized the raid by special operations forces that killed osama bin laden he sat down with admiral william mcrae former commander of the united states special operations command who oversaw operation neptune's spear to reflect on that mission and its impact ten years ago this week you were obviously in that final period of of deciding what to do of evaluating risk is there a moment or two that stands out in your head from that period when i look back you know with the benefit of 10 years what strikes me maybe is not a particular moment the number of people who operated at the very highest levels for a sustained period of time that is something that i appreciate even more a decade later it makes me appreciate how unfortunately rare that is and it makes me wonder sometimes how we can duplicate that kind of uh mission orientation and focus uh in so many of the other challenges that our country has to meet admiral mcraven in this same period of time leading up to the the operation itself president obama has to make a decision but things are shifting on to the shoulders of you and obviously the operators who are going to carry out the actual raid how did you feel that transfer of of responsibility as a part of this broader whole when i came in the first meeting i think was in march and the process allowed us to go from the macro here are the the options we're looking at down to the micro which was okay we're going to go with the raid and then you asked all the right questions the hard questions but to me it didn't end there the process was mission completion bin laden captured or dead and the boys back home safely and so i didn't feel that all of a sudden there was this this historic shift and the responsibility now came to uh to the military aspect of this this was an entire process that everybody was part of i've said it before but watching your leadership at the head of the table i remember walking away going man you to think this guy had been in the military for 35 years the way you commanded the room we ran a tight process because the stakes were so high but after all the work we did all the process that we went through the one thing i've always emphasized was that there remained enormous uncertainty absolutely there was uncertainty about whether it was actually bin laden and abadabad about what was the nature of the compound how would the pakistanis react if they found out what gave me ultimately confidence to be able to make the decision once you cut through all the other analysis was here were a group of military personnel who operated at the highest levels doing things that no other organization or group of individuals really could carry out so you make the decision mr president and then the day before the raid you uh on a saturday afternoon from the oval office you called admiral mcraven for one last conversation in which you wished him well but also asked him to convey your appreciation to the the members of the team why did you want to make that call and and what did you convey to admiral mcraven in the team two reasons i did that one is that no matter how highly trained those warriors were there was still enormous risk uh to a mission like that but the the second reason i think it was important for me is that uh as commander-in-chief and and certainly here in washington a lot of times these issues of war are treated as abstractions and we forget that these are folks who have families and loved ones and that they are carrying a burden on behalf of hundreds of millions of americans and when you are commander-in-chief and you make a decision about a particular mission like that it was one of those rare opportunities where i had a chance to say not in after the fact not in retrospect not when folks are coming home but before they go uh that we don't take this for granted this phone call uh meant a lot to me and and to the guys getting ready to go on the mission and this was a uh you know the commander-in-chief yes but a man who understood that the seals and the night stalkers the helicopter pilots were getting ready to go on a mission that was you know potentially could cost them their lives and and you wanted to convey that to me and mr president you went up to new york you know shortly after the operation and went back obviously on the anniversary of september 11th so what was the the takeaway from those experiences in new york you know i had stayed in touch with many of the family members of the 9 11 victims i heard from them both how those wounds in their hearts hadn't fully healed their concern and their worry that their loved ones and what had happened might be forgotten in in the flood of other events that had happened there was a young woman uh at this point 14 uh who had lost her father the age of four and had actually talked to her father in the building it was the last conversation that she remembered with her father and she she was there at that ceremony and gave me a big hug and um and and we had a chance to talk uh meeting with the firefighters of the station that had lost almost all of its members because they were some of the first responders it brought home the fact that so so many of the issues we deal with they are big historic issues but they are also issues that are very personal for people right i had a chance to go to new york i think in november of 2011. and i have not been to new york in 50 years and when i got to new york the new yorkers were so thankful for you know what the decisions you had made and what the the team had done and i could really begin to internalize it and of course it was about bringing justice to bin laden but it was about something else as well it was about this idea that our nation could do something hard and do it well i think people also looked at the sacrifices that had been made for a decade in afghanistan and iraq and so this was the closest approximation maybe to a to a victory day that we might have but what i'll always remember is is the the look on that uh young woman's face uh and the story she told about her father and that as i think captures as well as anything also the the the sense that each individual in america matters and that part of being a nation is that we depend on each other and we remember each other and we see each other and that we defend each other admiral mcraven you know the other visit president obama made in the days after uh was to fort campbell where he was able to to meet with the team i think you at the time if i remember were very clear about there's a sealed team there's the aviation detachment the night stalkers but then there were other troops at that base we talked to troops deploying afghanistan and it seemed like you wanted to convey that this this was an achievement of everybody who served in uniform uh after 9 11. but what are your recollections of that date for campbell there was a recognition that yes it was great for the seals and the night stalkers to be the final piece of the puzzle but make no mistake about it this was the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and sailors airmen marines you know intelligence professionals foreign service officers that had all contributed to this fight and the best way to have done that certainly from the department of defense side was to meet with one of the the uh the larger uh elements which was the 101st airborne division the part that i remember most about that visit was after we got through talking to the seals and and the night stalkers we went over to the 101st and the plan at least as i recall was you were going to get up we were in a giant hangar of course there were hundreds of soldiers out front you were going to you know say some remarks and then kind of shake a few hands almost a ceremonial shake a few hands right well you came off the platform you went down that's how i felt you went down to start shaking hands and of course the soldiers started lining up and you kept shaking hands and finally i kind of saddled up beside you and i said mr president you know you don't need to shake everybody's hand and you turn to me and you said hey bill this is important to me and hopefully it's important to them what you didn't see which is what i saw was there was a line outside that hangar you know i i i will tell you bill uh because because i get emotional about this too every one of those kids they had said we are here we are ready and we are willing to sacrifice everything to defend this country and some of them saw action and some of them didn't some of them had friends who came back and some of them had friends who didn't come back some came back and were grievously wounded all of them came back with scars that maybe weren't always visible here's what i remember though about meeting with the the team that had actually executed the mission it wasn't just that they were highly skilled and it wasn't just that they were extraordinary warriors but it was also cool under pressure experience gained from years of other operations and frankly lessons learned from some previous members of special forces who didn't come back from a mission uh and and all you you could i think explicitly a number of them mentioned that that listen we're we're here and we appreciate you thanking us but understand they're a bunch of guys who aren't here anymore that we learned from and that allowed us to function at the highest level uh and and that's the strongest memory i always have because it it reminds me of all of this is part of a chain you know but we we build on the the sacrifices and lessons that uh the hard-won lessons uh of all of thousands tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of people who've come before and to your point sir it wasn't just the ten years from nine eleven uh it was the you know 30 40 50 60 70 years all the way to world war ii for the special operations guys i mean we tried to learn from every mission that went well in every mission that didn't go well um so they were they were poised to do that that's exactly right i'd be remiss if i didn't point this out and ask uh mr president uh you're not the most sentimental guy but um you clearly made a choice there in having that flag that's on the wall behind you um what's what what is the story of how you got that flag and why did you choose to put it you know in such a point of probably the most prominent space in your post-presidency office there was an american flag that had been taken on the mission it had been on the helicopter and it had come back intact and all of the members of the team who had participated had signed it on the back and they wanted to present it to me as a gift that meant the world to me because it signified that in in some small measure they felt as if i had been true to the mission and their sacrifices that i had taken it seriously and soberly and that that i had had been part of this broader process in a way that uh elicited trust from them i know they appreciated in the tough decisions and they were just honored that you took the time to come down and once again thank them well and i would be remiss if i didn't take this opportunity to say thank you bill i i i've said uh i've said this publicly many times i've written in my book but i want to say to you personally i could not have had a better leader and a a a better representative of all that's good in our military uh than you and uh have having you in charge of this mission is what gave me the confidence to make this decision i did so i thank you and your family for that my pleasure thank you appreciate it

Channel: Obama Foundation

Views: 800,731

Keywords: President Obama, Obama Foundation, Admiral McRaven, Osama bin Laden

Id: yVZaUtnvJKs

Length: 14min 24sec (864 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 30 2021