President Barack Obama appearing on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” said he’s had no problem sleeping since ordering the death of Osama Bin Laden. It was Obama’s first direct response to critics, who contend U.S. forces should have taken the al-Qaeda leader alive.
During the interview, Obama said that anyone challenging the belief that bin Laden did not deserve to die “needs to have their head examined.”
Obama said he was nervous about last week’s clandestine operation in Abbottabad, describing it as the longest 40 minutes of his life, with one parental exception, his daughter Malia battled meningitis as an infant.
Bin laden was the architect of the Sept.11, 2001 attack that killed almost 3,000 people, and planned as well as executed other terror attacks throughout the world.
Bin laden lived in a sprawling compound about a stones throw from a military complex, and less than an hour from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. Intelligence officers suspect he had been living there for as many as six years.
That has sparked a boisterous debate among some in Congress, who now believe the Pakistani government was complicit in bin Laden’s ability to hide and out-maneuver American forces for nearly a decade. Some lawmakers want to stop sending aid to Pakistan.
“We don’t know who or what that support network was. We don’t know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government.”
Obama said it is going to take a thorough investigation to learn the truth. He reiterated that Pakistan is a strong and valuable ally in the war on terror.
Obama said there was no absolute way to know if bin Laden was at the compound, and he fretted over exposing that team of Navy SEALs to too much risk. ”But ultimately I had so much confidence in the capacity of our guys to carry out the mission that I felt that the risks were outweighed by the potential benefit of finally getting our man,” said Obama.
(The video accompanying this RTC story is one of numerous home video’s seized from bin Laden’s compound along with a trove of documents and files showing the inner workings of the al- Qaeda.)
