Obama's big decision on May 2 Osama bin Laden raid

The decision-making behind the Seal Team Six raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 2 2011 showed how President Barack Obama, and only Obama, made the crucial decision about what to do if the Pakistani authorities discovered what was going on and sent troops to intervene. I know of course that this is how the system works, it's always the president and commander-in-chief who makes the final decision but this was a huge deal. According to Admiral Bill McRaven, then commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) who was in charge of the raid, it was Obama who asked the question when they were all gathered in the White House Situation Room during the planning stage of the operation. "What if the Pakistanis find out and arrive at the scene ready to intervene?" McRaven said he was fully prepared for his commandos to fight their way out of the compound and warned that it would be a helluva firefight. Obama thought for a moment and replied. "Agreed, fight your way out if necessary." The repercussions between the US and Pakistan would have been dangerously tense if Pakistani troops or police were killed. One of the major challenges was for the helicopter assault force to reach the Abbottabad compound without the Pakistani air defences being alerted. McRaven decided that if the Pakistani radars detected the specially-modified Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters carrying 24 Seals and one CIA operative as soon as they crossed the Afghanistan/Pakistan border and took offensive action, he would order them to turn back. If they discovered the US commando raid helicopters half way on their 162-mile journey from Jalalabad base in eastern Afghanistan, he also decided he would order a turn back. But if they were three-quarters of the way there, then it was full-on go. In the end the helicopters reached the compound without alerting the Pakistani air defences. The raid started at 1am May 2 and took 45 minutes, much of that taken up by grabbing the mass of dcuments and hard drives and other vital intelligence material which was shoved into black bags and thrown into the helicopters before taking off. The Pakistani troops and police in Abbottabad never arrived. And when the helicopters had to refuel inside Pakistan, locals who watched thought it was an exercise. There was no firefight with the Pakistanis. It could so easily have all gone wrong and Obama's legacy would have been very different.