Obama: Upset by Osama Death? Get Your Head Examined

He calls the raid the 'longest 40 minutes of my life'
By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff
Posted May 9, 2011 1:39 AM CDT
Updated May 9, 2011 7:54 AM CDT

The mission to nail Osama bin Laden could have gone horribly wrong. That's why the heart-stopping raid was the "longest 40 minutes of my life," President Obama revealed in a 60 Minutes interview aired yesterday. Officials "had a sense of when gunfire and explosions took place," but "we could not get information clearly about what was happening inside the compound," he said. He was supremely satisfied with the outcome. Anyone who feels the terror mastermind didn't get what he deserved "needs to have their head examined," said the president. "Justice was served." Obama for the first time revealed the tense days leading up to the raid, and discussed going through the motions of his day-to-day obligations, worrying all the time about the mission.

He said the decision to launch the raid was difficult because there was no certainty that bin Laden was inside the targeted compound. "There would have been significant consequences" if bin Laden was not there, he explained. "My number one concern was: can our guys get in and get out safely?" He finally went ahead with the plan, against the advice of several of his national security advisers, notes the Washington Post. "Ultimately, I had so much confidence in the capacity of our guys to carry out the mission that I felt that the risks were outweighed by the potential benefit of finally getting our man," he said. (More Osama bin Laden stories.)

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