The White House canceled tours by visitors, including those by celebrities who had traveled to Washington DC to coincide with the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner. All meetings related to the raid were recorded in the White House agenda as the “Mickey Mouse Meeting.”
The famous photo is the one previously published showing Obama, surrounded by his staff, including National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Homeland Security Adviser John Brennan and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton along with Vice President Joe Biden in the situation room. The «predictable tension» in the room, later described by Obama himself, is evident. Unable to concentrate on anything else, the president and his staff played cards in the Oval Office while they waited. At 3:30 in the afternoon, CIA director Leon Panetta announced that helicopters were close to Osama’s compound. The historic photos were taken by Pete Souza, the official White House photographer, who was squashed “with his ass against a printer,” as he himself told in one of his books.
The first page of a document in one of the new images from the Obama Library has been blurred, and there are 307 others that have not been turned over to the newspaper because they contain “classified national security information.” As the president and his staff watched the events unfold before their eyes, one of the helicopters was forced to make an emergency landing inside the compound. William McRaven, commander of operations Afghanistan and Panetta announced almost simultaneously shortly after 4:05 in the afternoon: «Geronimo ID’d… Geronimo EKIA», ie enemy killed in action (the enemy killed in action).
The CIA and the military were criticized for using Apache leader’s name for Bin Laden. Obama said softly, “We got him.” After the handshakes, the concern turned to the completion of the operation with the exit of the Navy Seals from Pakistani airspace. Photos of Bin Laden’s corpse were passed around the room: Obama was certain it was him, while others said they had to wait for the results of the DNA test before they could confirm it. But as he debated when to make the announcement, the news began reporting on the helicopter crash. After confirming Michelle, the president called his predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton first, explaining to Bush that lThe operation was the result of efforts begun during his administration. Also visible in one of the photos is Antony Blinken, who was then Vice President Biden’s national security adviser.