was this sort of mythical assumption that he was living in a cave. that hasn't been true for atime. he didn't have internet or phone contact there but he was not out some where where he couldn't be found. he was in regular communication and had couriers coming and going from his compound. >> greta: how about ayman ail zahirry, number two. >> bret: the top of the hour. 1:00 in the east on a huge early morning monday. osama bin laden dead at hands of u.s. forces inside pakistan. an operation 40 minutes on ground for u.s. helicopters taking off according to sources from a base inside akro pakisto

all off in operation about 60 miles noth of islam ma. in addition to osama bin laden two others were killed. his many l dem many st son believed to be among the best. the u.s. has the body of osama bin laden and we are told that it is being handled by islamic customs from a senior administration official. quoting we are ensuring it is handled in accordance with islamic practice and tradition, something we take seriously handled in an appropriate manner. >> a big morning, of course, one of live shots is on the screen outside the. the man who took us to this breaking news this evening on fox news channel geraldo rivera is outside the white house right now. geraldo, got me.

in here we go. >> geraldo: i've got you. >> bret: what is it like? what is it like, geraldo? >> geraldo: hi, bret. it is wild out here this morning. -- it's mard mardi gras, it's w year's eve. people chanting usa and you can hear a them and celebrating something that has taunted, imagine it has been ten years. the average age of this crowd is 20 years old. so almost their entire adulthood. they want to get tomorrow's scheduled finals rescheduled in light of the jubilation of this happy, happy news. let me just ask how, how do cow feel? >> i feel incredible. it is something we waited for.

it is great that he is finally we got him. >> amazing being here. >> we got him, geraldo. we got him. a great day for america. a great day to be alive. >> geraldo: how about you? >> it is surreal. >> geraldo: back to you, what about you? >> i love usa. i love america! it's awesome. finally the guy's dead! >> we are all so happy to be out here and celebrating the usa. >> kimberly: >> geraldo: a great day for our nation. a great day for our president. absolutely. look, even somebody with a must tamp in the crowd.

cheering away. it is wild out here, it is. such a party atmosphere. it is so to me so soothing in a way as ra raucus as this crowds reaffirming to see their patriotism of these people. an amazing victory of democracy and justice over terrorism. a mass murderer dealt the final blow. he has paid the ultimate price for what he did to us. come on. come on, you

guys. >> geraldo: in a way, bret, this is our cairo moment. and this is when our people are coming out to reaffirm our democracy, the triumph. and it is amazing. let me just see here, let me see here. and to be -- excuse me. to be in the shadows of the home of our chief executive. are you in the marines 12346789. >> yes, i am. >> tell me where you have been. >> iraq and afghanistan. 2009. with the sixth marines? i was with the sixth marines in helmud province, too. >> state department. >> geraldo: we have two service

people. tell me your name and your unit and what you neal. >> i was in afghanistan. i'm a comguy. i did all the come for all afghanistan. >> i have only been in the navy for seven months. >> geraldo: what a way to start. on bee half o behalf of all ofe marines, they lost people, fighting there in the province. for those marines and soldiers who fell over the last ten years brother, you tell me what are do you want to tell the american people? >> we got him! finally! >> i love your mustache. minus tach.loves minus tach. >> george, washington, tuition, $42,000. the doorman, $10,000.

bin laden dead -- priceless! [ cheers and applause ] >> geraldo: i'm from ca canada. you guys worry about where people are born, it is more important where they die. >> we got him. thanks to president bush and president obama and war eagles. >> geraldo: all right, this is truly mission accomplished. i don't want to overstate it. let's go to the front here. as experts -- there are thousands of young people here. i'm just glad they were studying for finals so you know that the beers have been on ice. i have two finals tomorrow and i'm not studying for them because we just killed bin laden!

>> my brother is in iraq. >> geraldo: tell me your name. >> in afghanistan. my husband served four years in iraq. >> and your son is in afghanistan right now. >> and my husband, too. >> and they are probably carrying this live in afghanistan. talk to your husband and your son? >> i'm so proud of them and i love them very much. >> we talk to them every day. every day. >> geraldo: what are their names. >> alexander and colonel christian kleinfeld. >> geraldo: all right. what branch, what unit? >> army. >> he is in the army corps of engineers my husband and my son is enlisted in the army. >> geraldo: all right. god bless them both. thank you for your family's service. i'm so happy to hear that you are in touch with them on a regular basis. i would call them right now

because i bet you will get quite a news flash. i give props to the marines. i also want to say to our are beloved men and women, the troopers of the 101 airborne now deployed over there. they are about to transition home to fort campbell. but i was exchanging e-mails with major general john f. campbell just yesterday but general campbell if you are listening, watching this right now, what do you want to say to general campbell? [ cheers and applause ] usa! usa! usa! usa! usa! ful. >> geraldo: bret i have no doubt but that this party will go well into the evening and i

call on the officials at george, washington, university to postpone tomorrow's final as. remember, i took the bar exam on the day after they landed on the moon. i know how unfair that was. this is bigger than the moon landing. this is huge. >> bret: geraldo rivera. >> geraldo: more of this electrical charge. >> bret: geraldo rivera who can capture the emotion in front of the white house. all right. you can capture the emotion outside the white house and the scene outside times square also

as you can see there a gathering of people. 1:10 on the east coast. we have some new information from our national security correspondent jennifer griffin live at the pentagon. jennifer? >> well, bret we now can report that the operation took place exactly at 3:30 eastern standard time. 15:30 eastern standard time. took place. there were four u.s. helicopters involved. one of them experienced mechanical failure and had to make a hard landing and that helicopter was destroyed on the site we are told from a senior u.s. defense official. so, no u.s. personnel were killed or injured in that crash. but it had to make a hard landing because that u.s. helicopter was is experiencing mechanical failuren route to this compound. we also can say that the pakistanlys we are told from a scene oru.s. official provided

some intelligence that helped our intelligence agencies develop the lead that led to this compound in abbotabad and some of the intelligence report reportedly came from detainees. we are told that some of the intelligence was obtained from detainees. one of the helicopters did go down from mechanical failure and firefighters destroye it we scene. >> bret: vice president biden notified congressional representatives of that action just before ten. we bring in a ranking member of the house select committee on intelligence. congressman, thank you very much for your time. >> well, it is just a great day for the united states and for all of those families who lost their loved ones and all of the

men and women out there fighting to protect us. this is a good day for those families. >> bret: tell me about being briefed and how you it happened and what the process was? >> it was just a phone call from leon panetta advising us of the news that the president was going announce shortly. >> what is your thought on o the intelligence community, the significance of this, outages on the intelligence committee, the significance of this kill? >> this is a significant kill. if you want to kill a snake you cut its head off. osama bin laden was clearly the psychological head of al-qaeda. it is a shows to the other leaders, al-qaeda leaders and others attempting to attack our country we willle eventually find you and we will take you out if you are going to attack

our country. there will have a tremendous morale boost for all of our counter terrorism specialists and our military and i think for the rest of the world. we have still a lot more to do. i was in -- about a week and a half ago, chairman rogers and i were are in yemen and we have some serious issues in yemen but our men and women who are -- whose job it is to fight terrorism at really with using ede resource they really pulled together that that we will be more effective. >> bret: obviously this is a bipartisan win. the president mentioned president bush and it changes the dynamic. what is your thought about the relationship with pakistan and what we will learn about what they knew about this location of this compound that bin laden may have been there for some

time? >> i think we have to improve -- i think pakistan needs to improve their relationship with us. you know, we need pakistan's help to continue to go after the terrorists that are affecting not only our country and the threat to our country but the entire middle east. so i think we need to get -- they need to go a lot further with us to help us take out the al-qaeda and the terrorists that are really affecting all of these countries. >> bret: thank you very much. a ranking member of the house select committee on in tell fence. thank you. find out what syndicated columnist charles krauthammer thinks of all this. charles, good morning. your thoughts? >> it is a great day and it is a great moment. it it is great. i think the principal effect, there will be many but the most

important is to demonstrate the reach and power and efficiency of the united states military. that i think will revebrerate around the world. we were attacked in 1998 by al-qaeda for the first time in a major way. the war in iraq and afghanistan, it looks as if we were either losing or at least sliding backwards but operation in libya, the world has a sense that the united states did not have the power, did not have the efficiency and did not have the might. the way the world saw us right after we -- iraq with the gulf war and the war of 1991 where there was this aura what america could do. and this tells the world that it could take a decade. you could be hiding anywhere in the world, we will stay on the trail, we will find you and we will kill you and i think that

it is like in some ways the raid pulled off in 1976 where they reached all the way to uganda and extracted hostages and killed the hostage takers. this demonstration of strength i think will leave a most important effect. >> bret: , charles, it is also important to point out that this is not just a u.s. victory in this fight. obviously al-qaeda is behind a lot of attacks, the madrid train station, the london 77 bombings. they are tied to attacks around the world. so as we see these live pictures at the white house and times square it is also important to point out that this has a world aspect to it. >> exactly. and

in a way the symbolism. al-qaeda attacked all of the western countries but the only one with the wherewithal to do it is the united states. the soviet union early on after that period in the gulf war is the one who could do it easily and with great triumph. lately people thinking america has slipped. i think this is a great restoration of that image. the other effects al-qaeda may for may not reconstitute. i think we underestimate how important was the leadership and symbolism. because you didn't swear allegiance to al-qaeda. you wore allegiance to him. it could weaken and could gooder because ther but thered

chance it could be weakened like al-qaeda in iraq was after we destroyed its leadership one after another after another. the most interesting question i think, bret, is what is the role of the pakistanis? of all of the statements that will be coming out on this, the one that matters the most is the one out of islamabad which ironically is where he was hiding. he was hiding in a suburb of islamabad. it is like hiding on long island near new york. i mean this is not a cave, it is not remote. what was that government doing? yes, it gave us information but what i understand in your reporting, bret, it did not know about this operation. >> bret: that's right. >> we went out on our own meaning we had no trust in the pakistanis to keep a secret and not to somehow inform bin laden. i think that is extremely

important. tle be interesting to see whether he complains the way complains about the drone attacks or whether they are taking the credit. tle be interesting to see how it affects our relationship with pakistan for years to come. >> bret: domestically the war in afghanistan has really been performing poorly in the polls. a lot of people saying is it worth it, why are we there? does this change the dynamic about afghanistan as we look at that operation there? >> if you were to ask the military on the ground, if you were to ask general petraeus he would probably say it is not going to have a divisive effect. it may over the long run. the political effect here at

home will be there is a sense as you look at the pictures of ion in the streetsy in the of new york and elsewhere. we have gotten our just revirginia tech. revenge. if the president determines that the war in afghanistan is a losing proposition i believe in the long run that we will be there for years and years and have an indeissuesive outcome. if he decides he wants to accelerate a withdrawal this is the hoping needed and this is an opening he could use. in it since it is like that idea way back in the '60s to declare and go home. that would be a crude way to put it here but i think in a sense the president can now argue in time we are going -- al-qaeda is weaken thed and not leading in afghanistan.

it there are only dozens of al-qaeda in afghanistan. it is weakened and our job is done and we will vigilant. it gives him a political hoping to say we are out, believing with honor and dignity, having accomplished our role. >> bret: charles krauthammer. great to have you on for your analysis and perspective. thank you, charles. the president saying the imimagines of 9/11 are seered into our national memory. he said after ten years of struggle and sacrifice we know well the thought costs of war and went on to praise the professionals and military working tirelessly to achieve this outcome that osama bin laden is g dead. joining me the former director of the cia, general michael

haydn. thank you for being with us this hour. >> thank you. good morning. and a very good morning. >> bret: give us your thoughts, first of all. >> a great day in america and a great day for the community in which i was a part for so long. years of hard work focused on this and finally results in the success we all wanted and frankly, we all knew one day we would get. >> you say that but yet it seemed like the trail had gone cold for a long time. but to hear the details of how this thread of information inside pakistan was developed and how it came into operation with the president ordering this operation friday and it all coming together 3:30 p.m. eastern time today, give us a perspective of how that happens inside the intelligence community. >> sure. and the president's narrative certain i have does reflect

things as remember them abouting. a human intelligence victory based on human sources which take a great deal of time to develop. very effective but very slow moving. they build up over a period of time. the president indicated this started last searc summer. more presix is finally -- we built up enough confidence that the president could order what would be a physically, operationally and frankly politically risky operation but he must have had great confidence in the intelligence that was developed before he would do so. >> bret: what about the challenges ahead with pakistan and the fact that at huge compound is 60 miles north of islamabad, the capital. there obviously are a lot of questions that the pakistanis will face in the coming hours. >> i understand listening to what steve and gretchen had to say as well. i think we need to wait for the

facts. how long has he been example and that would be something relatively easy to develop. could he have been forced out of the tribal region because of our activ activity there over e past three years? we don't know. let's find out more facts before we make judgments about it. it seems to me tobies clear now that we did this on our own based on intelligence we had pakistanisnd if the pack tan were involved it was after the fact and that has a ring of truth for me. >> bret: there is so many men and women who work at the cia who we never hear from, never ruly hear about a lot of the things they do. you worked inside that building. you worked with those men and women. put this in perspective for them a very public victory in a

not so public cia. >> our successes hardly ever reported. our failures real or imagined seemed to be above the fold in the front page of the pape erall too often. >> a bit of celebration and bit of a sense of accomplishment and then a realization that this war is far from over and there is a lot more to be done and these good folks, they are just going to go back to work. >> bret: the state department put out a barbecuing bash worldwide travel alert for u.s. sit zens -- the state department out out a worldwide travel alert. how serious should people take this and knowing what you know about spikes after big events and about al-qaeda, what about that warning? >> i take it seriously. number one, this will shake the organization and i'm going to

love to see them try to do it through a succession. we have never seen that before. you know as well as i this is not a hiarchy. it is a network and very diffuse and they have very powerful franchises operating. what the government is warning folks again is a violent response from al-qaeda or its afailiates in some way to demonstrate they are still in the fame. game. it is prudent to take extra precautionary steps. >> bret: thank you so much for being here. >> thank you, bret. >> p.j. crawly, a former state department spokesman. we welcome him to the discussion. first your thoughts on this historic action, osama bin laden being killed? >> let me pick up where mike hayden left off. the al-qaeda of today is different than it was ten years ago but bin laden was always at

the center and always the source of inspire 86. by hollowing out the center we have significantly did main initialed it's cape act and just as we saw you with zarkwahi in iraq there will be leadership succession. by the same token for al-qaeda it does have a lot of vulnerabilities because there could be squalling, there could be internal struggles and that provides intelligence opportunities for us. i think also it many will we important to find out what else we can discover in that compound. certainly if he had a rolodex and we are able to find us that, that gives us additional needs in inerms of administer in heighting. >> you traveled around a the

world and to pakistan. there were puck lic public ande conversations. one would think this would be an opportunity to use even more leverage against the pakistanis to get them to do more. >> well, agree with charles and mike that it will be very interesting to see how the pakistanis react to this. this is a shared struggle. the government recognizes that. the pakistani military probably arguably has suffered significant casualties through the operations. the pakistani people have a much more ambivalent attitude towards this. it will be interesting to see how they react to this knowledge that bin laden was not even in the tribal areas, was in the heart of pakistan. i hope that they will see and

this will reenforce particularly given some recent attacks against pakistani military forces by the taliban and this network that this is in fact a shared struggle and they will redouble their efforts to work with us to continue to diminish the threat. >> bret: last thing, the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu made a statement calling this a resounding triumph. saying a resounding triumph for justice and freedom against terrorism. as you see the live pictures p.j., outside the white house and in new york obviously this is a big moment for the u.s. in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. but it also touches pretty much every corner of the world. >> it does. no question that this is a big deal. it does h help -- it doesn't eliminate the threat, you know, a lot of the operations a know

how and energy has been moved out of the center of al-qaeda to these franchisers in the arabian peninsula and other places. we will still confront a threat in the future but certainly, you know, this does give a very significant political boost to the united states because it has been our goal over ten years to bring bin laden to justice and we have achieved a very great success. >> bret: thank you very much for coming in early morning on a pig news morning. -- on a big news morning. thanks a lot. >> okay, brett. >> catherine herridge has new details. catherine? >> i just had a lengthy conversation with the u.s. official who i think for the first time is has really painted dwigh quite a detailed picture of the compound. the intelligence that led to the raid came almost entirely from the cia and was based on

information gleaned from the movement of these couriers who over the years have helped bin laden really survive and hide by relaying information and to other parts of the network. i was told the compound was identified in august of 2010. that is important because what we heard from the president is that there was an intelligence tip. but fox has been able to confirm that was it was in fact the identification of the compound itself in pakistan in august of 2010. whey was also told is that the compound was exceptionally large for the area that it was in. i was told it was 8 times larger than most of the homes in the area and when it was first built it was largely in a vacant area. over the last six years this had built up quite significantly so had quite an urban feel. the compound was built in 2005 and what the u.s. official said to me is that it was clear to the intelligence community it was built to house someone of bin laden's stature. i was told there was

significant and heavy security presence there. 12 to 18-foot high walls topped with barbed wire and two security gates at the compound and that the com compound itsef was three stories high and at the ta terrace on the third for that there was a 7-foot privacy wall. the property was valued at about 1 million u.s. dollars and there were two brothers living there and they had a connection to bin laden and there was no reasonable explanation as to why they would have that much money to live in such a compound. also confirmd that bin laden's son was at the compound and killed in the raid. we have confirmation of that as well. the main headline here is that a u.s. official has told fox news tonight that the compound by their estimation was custom built to hide, to house bin laden back in 2005 and that his

son was also killed in the raid, bret. >> bret: following up, we don't want to jump to conclusions about who knew what when but with a compound like that just 60 miles from the capital, t seems like there will be a lot of questions for pakistani officials. >> one of the things i asked was whether we felt bin laden had been living there since 2005 and the u.s. official said that they really couldn't answer that but knew he had been living there recently. when you lay out the details as i have now it paints a picture that at least back in 2005 we had a compound that was highly unusual in its setting that appeared to be in the words this of u.s. official custom built for someone of bin laden's statue. and whe stature. >> when you listen to the bobbed wire and third story of

the compound, the 7-foot high security wall that leads you to the conclusion that bin laden may have been living there if not for some period of time at least intermettently. i can tell you from my own experience having covered this beet for a decade, the fact that bin laden's eldest son was with him is the fact that he felt very comfortable and secure in that setting and you cannot underestimate that. >> bret: the associated president may be moving video of the area shortly and we will bring it to you here on fox news channel. an ex-pansuv compound. let's talk to greta van susteren and thomas mcinerney

and steven hayes. >> you are here on everything and shaking your shed. >> greta: if it house went up in nye neighborhood that is 8 times as big as the other houses i would say who is house is that and who live there's. for us to think that pakistan is not up to their eye balls in hiding information, is almost laughable. of course, they were. and, of course, india is sitting next door who is their mortal enmckinley enemy to pas saying we told you so. india is probably all rattled and upset and maneuvering into afghanistan they are fighting about afghanistan. so what is the surprise tonight? that we find bin laden in a place with 18-foot walls and a place that is 8 times as big as anything in the area. the pakistanis have been deceitful with us before about

intelligence. which parts 2:what is the surprise? i don't get it. >> are you hearing, steve, that this is going to be used as major leverage against the pakistanis as far as make the move things that maybe we wanted to make a move on. >> i believe the obama administration will use this to pressure the pakistanis in the northwest province. >> greta: how do they do that? >> by publicly shaming them. >> greta: publicly shaming beam them about the drone. >> we can say we didn't throw you under the bus. >> greta: i don't have the answer or pretend to. it is an extraordinary difficult problem. i get that but the idea that shaming them, i mean we -- we just gave them $7 billion and they were mad because we wanted

to know how they were going to spend it. i don't think they will react to shame. >> i suggest the obama administration is going to use this to try to get the pakistanis -- hats to themip my helicopters for finding him. >> the courier system. i think we will go back and learn that we had a lot of information from public sources about the kinds of system that was being run and the fact that this was leading to good in tell vince. remember it was last summer that we learned a and e npr first reported that osama bin laden himself had personally ordered an attack on various sites throughout europe and he did this by discatching couriers. we know that he was using this courier system and we had a detainee at bagram air force base, who was providing us information to his u.s. interrogators and giving us some sense of at least how the courier system was working at

the time. >> greta: but look at the money that -- it is not exactly microsoft in terms of being able to make money. they build this huge home. that was another tipoff. >> bret: general, weigh in here. we have got i think 25 seconds of video that i want to put up on the screen here. this is from pakistanitv. you can see the fra graphics across the screen and this is piece odd be the compound with the wall there's thought to be the place where this all happened where osama bin laden was killed. it as short piece of video and we will try to get some more when it is a little clearer but it is a substantial place, general, that they had to know it was there. >> absolutely, bret. and i think steve and greta's comments are spot on. the fact is he holbrooke as

general hayden as mike hey zen said, the human sources. these are the couriers and ear sources and detainees. they did a good job in collecting this and putting it together. he doesn't carry the black wherery any more, the satellite phone. we gave that to him and so this is the way and they did it skillfully and deserve great credit for it and then acting on t. my personal take is he has not been there for five years. he probably was moving in -- you know, qaddafi used to move every tight in the old days. >> greta: seems like such a safe place. >> but the fact is there is always the risk of once they know about it to get in. he had the pakistanis protecting limb. >> look at the wal-mart of

nuclear technology and all fan the world series. world concern -- they have not exactly been straight on many of the issues so why would they be straight on this one? >> i'm saying you are right. i don't think they are straight. the only thing i think is for his security and his discipline he probably has not been there seiches august. anile not tell us because they don't want to divulge that and they shouldn't. i'm sure if you look there are other compound there's and i think in eye he ran as well. because our best takedowns have always been in pakistan. khalid shaikh moment. all have been in pakistan. >> bret: they almost always lead to others and general hayden mentioned that that scouring this compound for intelligence to whatever comes next cobby imhenned in days

ahead. sent pointing out they remain at heightened state of vigilance. our security posture which includes measures unseen and seen will continue to protect the american people from the evolving threat picture in the next days and beyond. joining me now on the phone, senator lindsey graham of south carolina. republican senator. good morning, senator. are you there? >> yes, good morning. >> bret: well, it as good morning if you followed this as we all have since the day of 9/11. and as the president said those images still seared into the national memory. your thoughts first? >> the first thing the vice president called and we went down memory lane about how long it had been and the pride in our american men and women in the military. everybody remembers where they were on 9/11 and everybody will remember this night for a very

long time. i'm mappy and relieved and the message is if you hurt americans there is no place you can go and no time can pass to keep you safe. >> bret: it is hard to put it all in perspective since it has been so long, senator, and so many briefings where we asked officials if they had any information about bin laden and some military personnel and you talked to a lot of them who said the trail had gone cold. and to hear this unfold about how this operation came about, what are your thoughts? >> well, there are things out there as i speak tonight about mull la omar, the guy who took over afghanistan who invited bin lad ton comen to come in ts special guest, who who allowed bin laden sanctuary. we believe he is in pakistan in that region and now is a good time to talk to our pakistan

friends and suggest that they be more forthcoming about mulla omar who set in motion the events that led to 9/11. so, what we are learning about the pakistani involvement here is disturbing. we need to no more. tonight is the night to celebrate and appreciate our men and women who reporting lived their lives to bring justice about but it does expos a problem we have. >> you mentioned pakistan and the relationship going forward. there are a lot of questions as you mentioned but the leverage potentially to get other action, do you think it is legitimate? do you think that being shamed by perhaps this happening 60 miles north of islamabad in what is dee dee scribed as a huge compound that everyone would be aware was there, what do you think that has an effect on the relationship? >> well, i think it will have an effect. i think it will -- the question

i will ask the next time i'm in pakistan is how could this be. how did this happen? what is your explanation as to how it compound was created. did you know. if you didn't know, how in the world could that by. let's talk about omar. hell me do you know b. pimm. i breeched want leaved he? in pakistan. have you look the. we believe it across the border it afghanistan. we would like to bring him to justice because without him there would be no 9/11 either and see what they say. >> bret: and the support for the network which is a kind of a crime syndicate in the eastern part of afghanistan that has killed many u.s. soldiers. it is pretty much known that there is some kind of effort to support them by the pakistani government or the isi their intelligence community. the leverage continue there's

perhaps. >> you can look across the afghan border and you can see these figures roaming around the city with ba knockars. i have been there and that part of pakistan it is frustrating, sometimes the pakistani help. they take casualties, they engaged terrorism at different times, they provide us with information. other times this he have told people that we are coming for them. it is a mixed bag and prolonging the struggle and pakistan is double dealing and they need to stop for their own interests. >> bret: we just received a statement from the president of the families of flight 93, gordon felt saying this is important news for and for the world. in cannot ease our pain. it brings become a buy hinder

that in the in the face of global terror can know spread his evil thunder. you been kind of the tip on the spear even the effort to try the 9/11 suspects, the terrorists. where does this go from here? >> well, here is what happened in the last week. khalid shaikh muhammad is in military custody at guantanamo bay. he was going to be placed in civilian trial in new york city which would have been a terrible decision. it would have criminalized the war on terror. he does not deserve the same con sty tubessal rights as the american citizens. he has to go to a military commission trial. bin laden their spear reitual leader and head of the al-qaeda organization is now dead, that should help the families understand that justice has been brought so the two events

together i think will provide some relief and comfort to 9/11 families and put other dictators on notice like qaddafi that your actions, you will be held accountable for your actions. >> bret: well, thank you very much, senator graham for this early morning. i know we will learn a lot more in the coming hours and days. thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> navy captain chuck nash. u.s. officials confirming that navy seals were in fact involved in the operation tonight. what are you hearing and what do you know and tell it us about your thoughts on the operation? >> doesn't surprise me at all, bret, that the navy seals were involved. they are part of a group that trains extensively for this mission and omaha bank other

very special mixes. so, those guys -- i know some of those guys. good gates. well, strained. and the kind of flawless execution you could say behind eventsmy lines quite frankly because although we are not at war with afghanistan they are supposed to be our allies in this. -- this is less than a fullup relationship. they had to do it. it will be interesting in the post debrief to hear what the excuse was that we gave the pakistanis for using their air base that we launched from. so we will probably not be able to do that again any time real soon. the fact of the matter is when the president in his statement said a small team of americans i knew right then that this was no pakistani involvement because he had the perfect opportunity to congratulate the

united states military and our allies are the the pakistanis and when that didn't come it was pretty straight up. >> bret: also when you hear the details, chuck, excuse me, about the compound, the challenge that a an operation like this would present to be on the ground for 40 minutes to take out at least three and now we are seeing video from pakistani sunday v and you get a lense of the big walls and center ice of the compound. the whole air aria area 8 time of the homes in the area. this would have been a challenging operation that they would have had to specifically train for. it happened today at 3:30 in the afternoon eastern time. >> gretchen: 3:30 in the afternoniron time would have put it at midnight 30 local. our guys like to work at night. we own the night and we are

comfortable operating. that because this is relatively new construction back in 2005. we can pull up all of the satellite images from back then so that you can actually watch how the building is being constructed which gives the people a tree mennous amount of insight sight into the hall ways and how the billeting is constructed so when we do their behearsals and go through this thing you weed up with the flawless planning and coordination tick laws operation. it is a small group well trained. it will be interesting to hear whether it was an american finger on the trigger optioner that killed bin laden or whether it was somebody in his party because it had been rumord that he did not want to be taken alive. so whether one of his own guys popped him just before the seals came through the door or whether our guys got him, that

will probably come out later as more information is made available. >> bret: thank you very much. we are looking live at times square. a candlelight vigil on -- can we listen in there? let's see if we can hear anything. we don't have any natural sound there. the white house, a live shot out there. a candlelight vigil ongoing. get a quick reaction from the man in charge of the cia's hunt for osama bin laden, michael shore joins us now on the phone. michael thanks for joining us in in early morning hour. >> you're welcome, sir. >> bret: and what are your thoughts this momentous occasion for the fight against terror? >> well, it is certainly a success and the people who staged it are to by congratulated but it is not much of an advance of the whole game. we have a terribly long road to go and it is all uphill but it

is a good day. bin lad season a good person to have dead but we have a long way to go yet, sir. >> kimberly: for all that you coulding in the -- i havite or nine of nye friends who died because mr. clinton didn't kill him in 1998-99. i he should have been dead a long time ago. >> bret: what about the implication for al-qaeda. you mentioned it is an uphill battle. we talked about how al-qaeda has franchised its operation around the world. you thought is that it has bon well beyond osama bin laden's command and control. >> i think he was still in control of the major themes. he as halls been an odd combination of a 7th century

threologyian and a ceo. so now he has been killed but the organization will go on, indeed. the u.s. and british governments have said yemen is the most dangerous place for us right now. >> bret: and when you hear the warnings about traveling for issues citizens around the world, how beerous do you think the potential will come after his death. >> i really don't know except i think it is a wise thing to warn poem. the maine and most people described him as a thug and a gang territories. across much of the muslim world he is the man who stood up to the united states. i think we have to anticipate individual acts of violence against americans and westerners whether inside the united states or outside.

>> bret: michael used to head up the lin badden unit. thank you very much. >> final thoughts from our panel. we talk a loot about pack standed a the threats still ahead and all of things that could potentially happen and relationship but the big picture here is that osama bin laden is dead after years. >> and t was brilliantly executed. brilliantly branned and we got some break is. one thing that surprised me is there were -- it may tell us that we had even he going intelligence that we thought had good surveillance and able to get in there unscathed. i mean really to that is superb, bret. and that full story will come out some time.

>> bret: greta? jet it is exciteing that president obama and the military was able to get osama bin laden. you know, it is almost ten years and we have been waiting and had this gone south the president should be blamed. it didn't go south and he gets lots of red dit and so does the military. the other big story is that pakistan has exposed for double dealing us. we are never going to get ahead on the war on terror if we don't find a way to stop pakistan from double dealing and playing us. that s the challenge to figure out how to get pakistan from quit double playing us. >> we heard that the war is over and that osama bin laden has been killed. that is not only wrong but dangerous. there is a lot of work to be

done and a lott has to be done in pakistan. we have to get better cooperation from the pakistanis. lindsey graham is was right about using this to look the other way. on this if if they did that to help us pursue the network more vigorously. we need their help and i think we can demand it now. >> bret: check in quickly as we look at the video from pakistan of the final compound. one last time before i hand it off to the top of the hour with jennifer griffin at the pentagon. jennifer? >> we learned that the raid was launched by about 40 u.s. navy seals from a base in afghanistan. not pakistan as some pakistanis officials have been putting out. we underand this from an official there n. there there is a picture of bin laden just released. it is a bloody picture and not

something that anybody would want to look at. it was about 40 navy seals half of whom landed on the ground. 24 got out of the helicopters and land on the ground. i'm told from a senior u.s. intelligence source that they actually asked him to surrender. they didn't give him much time and he was shot. we understand it was chinook and blackhawk helicopters involved in the operation. we don't know what base but the shortest distance between the base in the j jalalabad area because you wouldn't want to have to refuel over afghanistan. anded there is intelligence saying that the pakistanis did not help in the develop of the plan for the raid, the intelligence that went into the

raid and that it was a tightly held secret and no details were provided to the pakistanis in advance of the operation. bret? >> bret: as far as how many took part, you are saying the number is about 40? that is the seidenberg of 9 quad. 2navy seals gout out of the helicopter and they were involved. so 40 is the number involved. >> bret: this wraps up my coverage here as i hand off to the top of the hour. historic night. the death of osama bin laden. we will have a complete wrapup of all of the day's events surrounding this historic story tonight at 6:00 p.m. eastern on special report as is president said the u.s. military has worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome as well as the in til against community. it is impo