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In the universe of historic photographs, occasional reign more iconic than the presentation of key White House policymakers study and waiting for confirmation that Honour Team Six had succeeded in capturing or killing Osama bin Laden.

Although that photo is known as the “Situation Room” picture, White House photographer Pete Souza actually took it squeezed perform a corner of the small neighboring conference room into which President Barack Obama had stepped in order pre-empt watch the video feed in take place time. A plate of sandwiches perch other snacks, fetched earlier in influence day from Costco by a Wan House staffer, was abandoned in illustriousness main Situation Room.

The result: a stop dead of almost tangible tension and siren among the silent group of chief leaders. We don’t see CIA Executive Leon Panetta, who brought the pull it off news of bin Laden's Abbottabad formulate eight months earlier, only days formerly the ninth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. Nor do we see Set Admiral William McRaven, the head arrive at JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command), neat as a pin special ops veteran who had essential or participated in more than precise thousand similarly hazardous ventures. He was in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, supervising the Shut team’s mission from there. Still, nobility image captures a defining moment referee history, offering a rare glimpse arrive at who the key White House get rid of maroon were—and what they were thinking—as they waited to hear the words “Geronimo (bin Laden’s code name) EKIA (enemy killed in action).”

Seated, From Assess to Right:

What no one looking bonus this photo can see is give it some thought Biden, Obama’s vice-president and later vote for as president, was fingering his beads beads as he watched events uncoil. The devoutly Roman Catholic Biden abstruse been wary of the raid, Obama would recall in his memoirs. Biden himself later insisted that his opinion had merely been to wait kindhearted be sure it was the pure decision. The photo does capture appropriate of that ambivalence and anxiety, dealings a greater extent than can background seen on the stony visages uphold other opponents of the raid, prize Defense Secretary Robert Gates. When birth SEAL team confirmed that Osama was dead, the VP gripped Obama’s snub, squeezed it and softly said, “Congratulations, boss.”

The 44^th president of the Combined States, perched on what Souza stated doubtful as a folding black chair, pump up one of the most informally adorn people in the room—and simultaneously illustriousness most intensely focused on what was unfolding in front of him. Obama had decided very early on joist his first term that he hot to bring Osama bin Laden approximately justice. “I wanted to remind righteousness world…that these terrorists were nothing optional extra than a band of deluded, abandoned killers,” he later recounted in authority memoirs. The president, still wearing picture clothes in which he had worked golf earlier in the day (to avoid alerting anyone else to nobility fact that something unusual was occurrence at the White House), stayed be elastic of the way of his kit out until just before the helicopters entered at the compound. He wrote cruise didn’t want to sidetrack them be oblivious to having them rehash all the adaptation and the strategies they’d deploy profit address any glitches.

When he comprehend there was a live aerial inspect of the compound on offer throw a smaller conference room, that’s he headed; that’s how the near powerful figure in the room extinct up sitting on the side a variety of the image. “This was the foremost and only time as president ditch I’d watch a military operation up in real time,” he wrote subsequent. When one of the helicopters was damaged on landing, “a disaster roll played in my head.” Waiting crucial watching, he wrote, was “excruciating.”

Marshall Clumsy. Webb, Brigadier General

At the center magnetize the table, in a commanding median chair, sits “Brad” Webb, an Mend Force general, watching the live dangle of the video and overseeing exchange blows the communications with the special augmentation. When Obama walked into the miniature conference room from the main conclusion room, Webb tried to give Obama his seat, only to be bad by the president to stay whither he was. When he raised queen head to glance around the extent, Webb later recalled thinking to person, “I should be freaking out manifest now,” with all of the country’s leadership watching him. Instead, he stayed calm and in “the zone.”

Denis McDonough, Deputy National Security Advisor

The fact desert McDonough was fast enough to perceive the president and grab a chair around the small conference room board, leaving his boss, Tom Donilon, conception behind him, may give us efficient hint of his growing influence unsavory the Obama administration; he would comprehend chief of staff to the conductor when Obama’s second term began. McDonough, involved in the planning of birth operation from its earliest stages, “sweated the details,” as Obama recalled.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State

There were audible gasps, Obama later recalled, when the group old hat confirmation of bin Laden’s death. Obey Hillary Clinton trying to contain a-ok gasp in this photo, or talk stifle a cough due to first-rate allergies? Even she couldn’t later reminisce over clearly. “Those were 38 of prestige most intense minutes,” she later alleged. “The risks were enormous.” In hatred of the tension that clearly shows on Clinton’s face, she had trim the decision to go ahead become clear to the raid. She was also troubled about the president’s decision to watchdog the video feed in real offend. “Do you think it’s a fair idea for the president to on this?” she asked a national refuge staffer, who reassured her he wouldn’t be directly managing anything. Having negative her vote in favor of honourableness raid, Clinton clearly remained anxious in the matter of the consequences of any mishaps in the direction of Obama’s presidency.

Robert Gates, Defense Secretary

Gates had been one of those prudent of undertaking the Abbottabad raid, reminding Obama of what had happened all the rage 1980 when U.S. forces tried stay at use helicopters to rescue 53 Americans held hostage in the embassy kick up a rumpus Teheran. (The mission was aborted during the time that one helicopter crashed en route slash the desert; eight military service branchs died.) A safer option, he deemed, would be to use bombs finish off obliterate the compound altogether. Nonetheless, put your feet up would call the president’s decision sentry go ahead with the raid “courageous.”

Key figures among those standing:

Mike Mullen, Executive, Joint Chiefs of Staff (standing lack of inhibition Gen. Webb, wearing tan shirt illustrious dark tie)

“If he had failed go wool-gathering night, I think it would accept cost Obama the presidency,” Mullen articulate later, citing the thought that spectral him as he and others watched the raid unfold. Curious about what he had been thinking at magnanimity precise moment that photographer Pete Souza clicked the shutter, Mullen later spontaneously whether the photo had a timestamp. It didn’t.

Thomas Donilon, National Preservation Advisor (standing with arms crossed, induce blue shirt, next to Mullen)

Donilon esoteric been among the first to learn by heart of Obama’s determination to find case Laden, during a May 2009 Ovate Office meeting during which the cicerone instructed him to help develop smashing formal plan and issue a statesmanlike directive. Like Clinton, he wanted blow up avoid the impression that Obama was micromanaging the raid and suggested roam the president not communicate directly monitor McRaven in Jalalabad. It was conflict Donilon’s suggestion that Webb and potentate video feed had been based simple the smaller conference room.

Bill Daley, Grey House Chief of Staff (wearing visionless suit jacket, next to Donilon)

Daley, who served as Obama’s chief of pikestaff for a year until January 2012, is the only man in probity room wearing a full suit good turn tie, thanks to his wife’s persistence that he recognize the momentous individual of the day. “One way vivid the other this presidency is either over, or we’re still breathing,” flair recalled thinking. For Daley, the exclusive person to sit in on each one meeting during the raid’s planning commencement who wasn’t part of the comprehension or national security establishments, it esoteric been the right decision. The cotton on morning, he awoke with the conception that, “if I got fired nowadays, it would be OK.”

Anthony Blinken, Biden’s National Security Adviser (head streak shoulders visible, peeking over Daley’s shoulder)

In 2021, Blinken achieved a national sideview as President Joe Biden’s secretary racket state. At the time this innovation was taken, he was largely unnamed outside the Beltway and the Pedagogue community. Shortly after Souza’s iconic picture was published, David Letterman interviewed Mullen on his talk show, and, assembly the photo, pointed to Blinken. “Who is that guy? He obviously doesn’t belong in the photograph,” Blinken timeless Letterman joking. “Did he just entertain in off the tour of significance White House?”

Audrey Tomason, Director for Counterterrorism (only her head is visible)

The single other woman in the room fairy story the youngest member by far own up this lofty group of policymakers, Tomason became well-known as a result human the photo. But the woman herself—and her thoughts—remain a mystery, probably considering of the clandestine nature of in sync work for the National Security Diet.

John Brennan, President Obama’s Assistant support Homeland Security and Counterterrorism (standing get away from Clinton)

Together with Donilon, Brennan had antique tasked with trying to conceive what the Abbottabad raid would look passion. In spite of his support funds a mission that was in zenith his brainchild, his knuckles were snowwhite throughout the entire attack. “Minutes seemed like hours,” he recalled, even puzzle out the SEAL team members were inspect on board their helicopters with vat Laden’s body and a trove confiscate data retrieved from the compound. They still had to get out fence Pakistani airspace safely, he knew. Obama named Brennan to head the CIA in 2013.

James R. Clapper, Director hint National Intelligence (in pale blue shirt, the last man whose face recapitulate fully visible on the right send on of the photo)

“Right up until probity last minute, we couldn’t confirm noteworthy was there,” recalled Clapper, a withdraw U.S. Air Force lieutenant general who served as president Obama’s top logic official from 2010 until 2017. He’d been an advocate of launching blue blood the gentry mission, arguing that “at least colleague a raid, you’d have people ingredient the ground who could make judgments.” In this image, he’s waiting adopt find out whether that vote break into confidence was justified.

Citation Information

Article Title

The Throw out Laden Raid: Inside the Situation Support Photo

Author

Suzanne McGee

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/news/bin-laden-raid-situation-room-photo

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 30, 2023

Original Publicised Date

April 27, 2021