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Personally monitoring the US special forces operation against the Al Qaeda's top leader, Obama said "We got him" after he was confirmed that bin Laden was dead, according to John Brennan, Deputy National Security Advisor for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security.
Obama had made one of the objectives of his presidency to get hold of bin Laden dead or alive.
"As many of you know, that the President, even when he was a candidate, had a very clear idea about the approach he would take as president towards Osama bin Laden," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said.Meanwhile, for a small group of top US officials, assembled at the White House Sunday afternoon, it was one of the most anxious periods in their lives, as they monitored on a real-time basis the operation against Osama bin Laden.
Giving a peek into the situation room at the White House during the operation, Brennan told mediapersons that when the operation did get under way, the President Obama rejoined the group to watch the progress.
"We were able to monitor in a real-time basis the progress of the operation from its commencement to its time on target to the extraction of the remains and to then the egress off of the target," he said."It was probably one of the most anxiety-filled periods of time, I think, in the lives of the people who were assembled here yesterday. The minutes passed like days, and the President was very concerned about the security of our personnel," he said.
"We were able to monitor the situation in real time and were able to have regular updates and to ensure that we had real-time visibility into the progress of the operation.""And the President was relieved once we had our people and those remains off target," Brennan said. "When you plan these things out, you know in your mind exactly what the first step, second step and everything going along. If there's any deviation from that, it causes anxiety."
"But the individuals who carried out this assault planned for all the various contingencies," he noted. So when a helicopter was seen to be unable to move, all of a sudden, you had to go into Plan B. And personnel did it "flawlessly"."And thankfully, they were as able to carry out that contingency plan as they were the initial plan," he added.