The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis

In Chapter 10, Stephanopoulos examines the Situation Room during the presidency of Barack Obama, with a focus on Osama bin Laden’s assassination. Shortly after the terror attacks of 2001, President George W. Bush vowed to find Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader and man responsible for the attack, dead or alive. Seven years later, however, Bush left office without having fulfilled his promise. Running for president in 2008, Obama made the capture or killing of bin Laden “the core of his foreign policy argument” and immediately stepped up the search upon winning the election (238).

In the summer of 2010, the CIA began tracking a man they believed to be a courier for bin Laden, which eventually led to the discovery of a large compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where bin Laden was believed to be. CIA surveillance found that a man, whom they dubbed “The Pacer,” would regularly come outside and walk in circles in the yard.

Extraordinary measures were taken in Sit Room meetings from that point on due to Obama’s concern that information would leak, and the opportunity would be lost. Once a degree of confidence emerged that The Pacer was bin Laden, Vice Admiral William McRaven, commander of the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, was brought in to discuss options.