BREAKING: President Obama's 'gutsy' decision

[Turborama]

Source: CNN

May 2nd, 2011 02:25 PM ET - The decision by President Barack Obama to launch the assault that killed Osama bin Laden was one of the "gutsiest" calls by any president in recent memory, Obama's top counterterrorism adviser said Monday.

John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, said that despite intelligence indicating that bin Laden was in the compound in Pakistan, there was no certainty the al Qaeda leader was actually there.

Obama "made what I believe was one of the ... gutsiest calls of any president in recent memory," Brennan said.

Read more: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/02/breaking-president-obamas-gutsy-decision/

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Some more snippets from that really detailed press conference http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/05/obama-aide-we-would-have-taken-bin-laden-alive/1?csp=34">via USA Today (I'll add the transcript when it goes online):

-- Obama and aides watched the operation in real time on video screens within the White House Situation Room. "Minutes passed like days," Brennan said. "It was clearly very intense."

-- It is highly likely that some Pakistani officials knew that bin Laden was "hiding in plain sight," in a "million dollar-plus compound" in a town where a military academy is located.

-- Operation planners were increasingly confident that their target was bin Laden, based on physical evidence and other factors, Brennan said (Obama was 6-4). DNA evidence sealed the identification, he said, enabling Obama and his team to tell the world, "we got him."

-- Brennan would not provide details about bin Laden's burial at sea, except to say it was done within Muslim tradition.

-- White House press secretary Jay Carney noted that, as a candidate, Obama said he would be willing to go into Pakistan if presented with solid evidence that bin Laden or other high value targets were hiding there.

-- Bin Laden and confederates used women as "human shields" during the shoot-out, Brennan said.