Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Video: Exclusive: Inside the Situation Room



>>> tonight, while we didn't yet know it, u.s. navy s.e.a.l.s were already in motion, as was the machinery of an ultra secret u.s. military strike that killed osama bin laden . on the night of the raid, the very top government and military leadership gathered in the white house situation room , and since then, this single still photo has stood as the symbol of the attack. and now, we have more to add to the public record. just today, the president talked about the attack and the risk it represented, but we want to begin tonight with a first. the first time news cameras have ever been allowed inside the white house situation room . we wanted to hear from the people in the photograph, what they told us for an hour-long broadcast later on this week is a riveting new account of the transformational day in the modern era of history and they talked about the tension, in that room that night, beginning with the crash of one of the helicopters and beginning with the president.

>> it's not a slam dunk yet.

>> it's not a slam dunk . at this point, all of us understand we're a long way to go before, before the night is done. and you know, i said this was the longest 40 minutes of my life.

>> to coin a phrase, all you know is you have a blackhawk down. it's in the courtyard. it turns out to have been suburbly piloted by a pilot who knew to nose it into the dirt to kill the torque of the landing.

>> right.

>> and cushion everyone on board.

>> right. and i will tell you, when i saw that pilot, i gave him a pretty good hug.

>> i was taken back by the seniority of this group, by the experience of this group. including the helicopter pilots who themselves, both individually quite frankly, made decisions which kept this mission on track. so i got to look each of them in the eye. they showed me in their execution of rehearsal and also in that steely eyed glare that they give you that they were ready to go.

>> being together at that moment, having gone to so many meetings, having wrestled this to the ground, the president was, you know, incredibly calm and collected. but obviously, he, too, was on the edge of his chair. it wasn't so much a high-five moment as a kind of looking around and just feeling together as almost one body that, okay, it's over.

>> that's a portion of the interviews we conducted. our entire hour-long special edition of "rock center" inside the situation room with president obama and the national security team airs this thursday night at 9:00, 8:00 central on nbc.

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