Tenth anniversary of US Navy Seal's Operation Neptune's Spear

May 2 is the 10th anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of Seal Team Six. May 2 2011 was when the US finally got revenge for the 9/111 terrorist attack which killed nearly 3,000 people. I was in Washington as The Times Pentagon Correspondent when the news first broke that the daring raid on bin Laden's secret, high-walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan had succeeded in identifying the leader of al-Qaeda as he emerged from his first floor bedroom and shooting him dead. It was one of the most extraordinary raids ever carried out by US special operations forces and gave Barack Obama the most dramatic moment in his presidency when he addressed the nation from the White House. Obama had been given several options when he was told that there was a reasonably high chance that Bin Laden was the 6ft 3ins man seen walking around the Abbottabad compound and deliberately not looking up to be caught by a passing surveillance satellite. First was the Big Bash option: hit the compound with a precision-guided bomb dropped by a B-2 stealth bomber. The problem with that option, easy as it sounded, was that the bomb would destroy the compound and leave no proof that Bin Laden was the man who had been walking around and was dead. There was also a risk that there would be collateral damage. In other words there were other village compounds not far away and there could be civilian deaths. So that was ruled out. Then there was the arned drone option but there were the same reservations. Where would be the proof to present to the world that Bin Laden had been killed? The third option given to Obama was the special operations raid but carried out with the Pakistanis to avoid having to do it without telling Pakistan what was about to happen. That was ruled out by Obama for very good reason. The Pakistani intelligence service which must have know Bin Laden was in Abbottabad, could not be trusted not to tip off the al-Qaeda founder and leader. So the fourth option became the only option, apart from doing nothing or waiting for further intelligence on identifying the Abbottabad compound resident. The fourth option was the covert Seal Team Six plan, to helicopter in 20 or so commandos to attack the compound, find Bin Laden and either capture him or kill him if he showed resistance. Theoretically they could have seized him but as soon as he emerged from a room where an AK47 Kalashnikov was sitting next to the bed, the double-tap shooting option was always going to be the most likely. Obama had his finest moment. Operation Neptune's Spear was the codename for the secret mission and Geronimo was the code sent from the Seals to the White House basement situation room where Obama and his national security team were sitting waiting to confirm that Bin Laden was dead.