at a bipartisan dinner last night, president obama got a standing ovation. >> there is a pride in what this nation stands for. >> reporter: and pride in the intelligence work that landed bin laden, the clues from al qaeda prisoners in u.s. custody, the hunches taken from interrogations with 9/11 mastermind khalid sheikh mohammed and the so-called 20th hijacker, muhammad al kahtani. today, real questions and concerns remain about the united states' relationship with pakistan. >> i'm quite certain that the administration along with the pakistanis wants to understand why osama bin laden could be so close to islamabad, really in plain sight. that's not good for us and that's not good for pakistan. >> nbc's michael isikoff is live in washington, d.c. now. so, michael, what are we learning about the intelligence trail that led to bin laden? >> well, we're learning bits and pieces and more and more every

day and almost every hour right now. and the narratives are shifting. you know, there are some people out there like vice president cheney and others who are suggesting yesterday that it was enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding that led to the discovery of the courier who was -- who led us to bin laden. and that was the key break in the case. in fact, in further reporting, by myself and others, the trail is a bit more tangled than that, and suggests some other alternatives. in fact, the courier's name was first given up or -- his name was given up at interrogations at guantanamo. turns out he wasn't a kuwaiti at all.

he was actually a pakistani who was born in kuwait. but when the most -- one of the more interesting parts is when they took his name to khalid sheikh mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times and, who according to u.s. officials, was the mentor for this guy, the courier, khalid sheikh mohammed did not give up his real name. he first even suggested he didn't even know him and it was only later when they captured other detainees that they were able to fully identify who this courier was and then once they had his name, they were able to use the full resources of u.s. intelligence including electronic intercepts, nsa and find that trail that led to the compound in pakistan. >> i want to be crystal clear here. the intelligence officers who were there at guantanamo bay say it wasn't until long after waterboarding had stopped on khalid sheikh mohammed, because of the fire that the cia came

under, for that technique, that khalid sheikh mohammed started talking, he started cooperating. i want to be very clear, the name of that courier, the stories about the courier came from other prisoners in american custody and when the interrogators asked khalid sheikh mohammed about it, both of them denied knowing this courier t was that denial that led them on the hunch to say, wait a minute if they're denying knowing this guy and all the lower people are talking about him, something's here. he's a bigger -- he's a key player. >> here's the most important piece on the timeline. khalid sheikh mohammed is captured in -- early 2003 in pakistan. and is waterboarded in 2003, 183 times according to the cia reports that have since been released on that. they didn't learn -- the cia did not learn the identity of the

courier until 2007, we're being told. so four years after the waterboarding of ksm they figure out the real identity of this courier and then they are able to follow the trail that leads to bin laden. so that is a somewhat different narrative than that being pushed by those who are suggesting waterboarding or enhanced interrogation techniques was the key to breaking this case. >> michael, thank you so much for the reporting you've done on that topic. my big question today, lots of debate over whether the u.s. government should make public the pictures and the video of the killing or burial of osama bin laden. i'd like to hear your thoughts on this. you can reach me on facebook, on twi twitter. we're having a lively conference about that. and senator bob casey is a member of the senate's foreign relations committee. senator, let me ask you, if

we -- if the u.s. government makes those photos or video public, are you concerned at all about the impact it has on foreign relations? >> contessa, no question about that. that has to be the question of whether to release them or not has to be the subject of a lot of consideration. i think those of us in congress have to rely upon, i think, our intelligence services and others to help us -- help the administration make that determination and to inform the policy that we have. but i'd leave that to others to make that determination about the impact on our national security. but i would be very concerned about it. >> senator, we're just hearing now from cia director leon panetta. he said that they did not tell pakistani officials about this raid. they didn't even share the intelligence with pakistani intelligence officials because they didn't trust him. they were afraid that somebody, within the organization, might

warrant osama bin laden or those around him. here is what he told nbc "nightly news" anchor brian williams. >> is the world safer? >> brian, i don't think there is any question that, you know, when you get the number one terrorist in the world, that we're a little safer today than we were when he was alive. but i also don't think we ought to kid our siselves that killin osama bin laden kills al qaeda. al qaeda is still a threat. they're still going to try to attack our country and i think we have to continue to be vigilant and continue the effort to ultimately defeat these guys. we have damaged them. but we still have to defeat them. >> we had made catching osama bin laden a priority from the get-go, from day one of 9/11. do you question now how reliable a partner pakistan is? >> well, contessa, no question about it.

this relationship between pakistan and our country has been complicated. and sometimes contradictory. and at times it actually has been positive. there are good indications on my two trips to islamabad, both in 2008 and 2009 where the cooperation and the intelligence sharing was getting better. the problem we have now is we had a number of months where this relationship has really gone sour to a large extent and now you have the revelation that osama bin laden was right in their midst and we didn't apparently have that information. it is deeply disturbing. it should cause all of us, members of congress and the administration, to ask and demand answers to tough questions. we want to get back to a time and a relationship which is much more constructive. we're going to get a briefing tonight, the members of the senate will, from leon panetta about a number of these questions, but we have got to be able to get answers to those questions from the pakistanis. otherwise, we can't have the

kind of partnership that we need to move forward on counterterrorism and even our strategy as it relates to afghanistan. >> attorney eric holder had to testify today during a house judiciary committee hearing. and they were talking about the role of intelligence and asked him whether he thinks three provisions of the patriot act, which expire at the end of the month, should be extended. is this going to put the issue of the patriot act about warrantless wiretapping, those kinds of things, back on a front burner? >> oh, sure. i don't think there is any question that these kinds of debates that we have had, whether it is over the patriot act or interrogations will present themselves even more urgently now. i think one of the most important things we have got to do not only in the congress but in the country is continually focus and be vigilant because even in the aftermath of the death of osama bin laden, we still are threatened by

terrorist organizations, groups, movements that we have got to be really vigilant babout. i don't think it changes the challenge we have to confront terrorism all over the world. and part of doing that is making sure that we're demanding that the pakistanis answer these basic questions. >> senator casey, good to talk to you. thank you so much for your time today. >> thanks, contessa. i'm joined by two former bush administration officials, tony fratto, the deputy white house press secretary, cnbc krktkrkt contributor and cory shockey worked in the pentagon, she's a research fellow at the hoover institution, author of "managing american hegemony." let me ask you both, how much credit do you give president obama for this successful mission, tony? >> i give enormous credit. it was a brilliantly conceived and executed tactical effort and very, very successful in the end. frankly, i think a lot of this debate over who deserves more or

less credit is like a bunch of guys after a football game in the bar arguing that -- whether it was a great touchdown pass or a great touchdown catch. i think this is a brilliantly executed effort here. we should, you know, focus on what intelligence we gained from this and think about going forward because the history will be written, but we need to think about our future attacks on this country. >> cory, what do you think? >> i agree with tony's judgment. i think the president deserves a lot of credit, in particular for sending a team of military and intelligence folks in there rather than just striking from a distance. i think it is actually important that we knew it was osama bin laden, it is undeniably osama bin laden. i think the president made a good set of choices. >> given the strike that took out bin laden, are you inclined to rethink whether a full blown war in afghanistan was the most effective way to go about dismantling al qaeda and those who harbor terrorists? >> it is a really good question,

contessa. i think both the efficacy and the level of effort we're focusing on afghanistan as opposed to yemen, other places where there are known terrorist activities. i think we need to have a national conversation about the resource intensity of what we're focusing on afghanistan. that said, i think given where we are in afghanistan, where we have the right strategy, where the prosecution of the war is going extraordinarily well, where there is a lot of pressure on al qaeda and the taliban, i think that actually helps enormously. i think the effort in afghanistan restricted the ability of osama bin laden and the taliban and al qaeda to perform other acts of terrorism and it has been hugely important in that regard. >> tony, in hindsight, you look back on the years you spent in the white house with the special insight you had, what do you think president bush could have done differently to nab osama

bin laden during his administration? >> i think everything was done by both administrations to try to get to osama bin laden, to try to obtain the right amount of human intelligence, electronic intelligence, to build the structures and relationships in these countries to gather that intelligence. it is a very long process. i think actually the capture of osama bin laden -- the killing of osama bin laden in this effort is exposing just how long it takes to develop a well executed plan to go after these high value terrorists. there is a lot that goes into it, a lot of moving parts, you know, even to the point of special operations forces having to train in afghanistan to execute the mission. these are very complex by enormous intelligence infrastructure. it is a victory for all of them. more so a victory for us. but getting back to the point that you asked senator casey earlier, you know, we now have

to take this and lend support to these programs, whether it is the patriot act or financing for the intelligence community, to continue this effort because we do have to be very vigilant going forward. the terrorists out there are looking to harm americans today. >> tony, cory, thank you both. i appreciate it. >> a pleasure, contessa. back to the breaking news out of southern california to begin this hour. it looks like police have nabbed their man. this was the driver that was leading them on a high speed pursuit through southern california, and through an area here outside of boil heights and alhambra. the driver was pulled over for a traffic violation and he took off. they didn't know why. but as you can see now, the l.a. police are swabbing the car, looking for evidence. he did apparently hit one car in the course of the pursuit. but this ended at a dead end in a -- at a cul-de-sac in a neighborhood. and there he is on the ground, hand cuffed. the u.s. army corps of

engineers blasted a hole in a levee. the explosions only lasted two seconds, so here we are looping the video. happened at night. now this will divert floodwaters across empty farm land and save that town of quiero from flooding. these are live pictures now of some of the flooding in the farm land over wyatt, missouri. missouri had filed lawsuits to try to prevent the army corps of engineers from blowing up that levee. they were afraid of the kind of flooding we're seeing here. but, again, the corps of engineers decided that flooding the farm lands was better than seeing the town of quiero, illinois, flooded as well. in arkansas, a missing boy scout troop from indiana has been found unharmed. the sheriff's department says the six scouts and two leaders were stranded in a remote area because of the flooding. they were spotted and rescued with the national guard helicopter. hundreds are still missing in alabama after last week's deadly tornadoes. the mayor's office says about

340 people are missing in tuscaloosa. one of the hardest hit areas. rescue crews are still searching for survivors. the u.s. promised to give pakistan more than $7 billion in aid over the next five years. but will we get our money's worth? plus, the navy s.e.a.l. team six, the secret group of elite soldiers, how their mission could be a model for the future. ♪

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the relationship between pakistan and the united states has been growing increasingly strained. it is likely to become more so now that we know osama bin laden was hiding in plain sight in a million dollar compound, just an hour away from pakistan's capital. this morning on daily rundown,

former secretary of state condoleezza rice weighed in on u.s.-pakistani relations. >> we all know that pakistan is a -- an important partner in counterterrorism. this is a time for the pakistani government to take control of this issue, do a thorough investigation, work with us and others to find out how this possibly could have happened. >> on bloomberg television, pakistan's former president shared his feelings about america leaving pakistan out of the intelligence. >> it is a pity there is no trust between two countries or two operatives who are operating against a common enemy. our sovereignty has been violated. to that extent, it doesn't go well with pakistani -- the people of pakistan. >> wes moore served a tour of duty in afghanistan and an aid to then secretary of state condoleezza rice. all those soldiers in afghanistan doing dangerous missions out in the mountains, out in the wilderness, always on the hunt for osama bin laden, on

the lookout for him, hoping that they would find him and here it is, bin laden's living in this safe, secure, very westernized city in pakistan. how does that make you feel about all those missions? >> it is frustrating. it is frustrating because, first, it is not -- i'm not terribly surprised when i heard the news he was in pakistan. i think for so many u.s. sold r soldiers that spent time in afghanistan, we would see this. we would see these type of activities take place, attempted cooperation with pakistani forces and cooperation was sxradic sxrad sporadic at best. but i think it also highlights a larger challenge that we're going to have in dealing with this issue. i think what this has shown is that either the pakistani forces are fractured in their support of our mission, or they are incompetent. and either one of the two is a problem. >> you heard pervez musharraf describe this as a violation of pakistan sovereignty when the spokesperson for the pakistani government put out a statement saying this was in accordance

with stated u.s. policy that they would go after osama bin laden wherever they found him. and that was pretty much the extent of that. but, again, they were quick to point out their commitment to fighting terror. and yet $20 billion we have given pakistan since 2001, did you find the pakistanis to be reliable partners when you were asked to work with them. >> we can't act like pakistan has never been a partner. there have been some very clear high value targets that the pakistanis have been very helpful. >> questionable enough that in this case, probably the most important mission that any of our military teams have been on since we went into afghanistan, and they didn't trust pakistan enough to even share the intelligence about where bin laden was or the fact that they were going in. they needed to plan that raid in and out in such a quick period of time that they could avoid a confrontation with pakistani military forces. >> you look at the complexities

and details of the operation, i think most u.s. intelligence officials would say had we shared this information with the pakistanis, the results would have been very different. so i'm not at all negating the fact that the pakistanis have not been full partners on this. but i also know this, the importance of a stable pakistan is extremely important, not just to pakistan, but to the region and to the united states. as we're thinking about how we're going to look at our policy, that has to be kept in mind as well. >> captain, appreciate your time. thank you so much. appreciate it. >> if you haven't paid 4 bucks a gallon for gas yet, you will soon. plus, hacked again. millions more gamers could be at risk for identity theft. be right back. ♪

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paying $3.97 a gallon on average, 32 cents higher than a month ago and compared to a year ago, we're taking $1.07 more to fill her up. i bet a lot of people aren't filling up now because of the cost. nasa says the earliest the space shuttle "endeavour" can lift off is tuesday because of technical problems. they're working to repair a failed switch box in the engine compartment. the last flight is being led by the husband of gabrielle giffords, mark kelly. a spokesman says she will return to florida for the second try of the shuttle. sony says it detekd a second security breach in its playstation network. hackers may have stolen personal information from nearly 25 million additional user accounts. so that breech comes on top of the 77 million playstation accounts already admitted were hacked and we're looking at 100 million people who lost e-mail addresses, first and last names, things like that. what a mess. hot on the web in "time" magazine getting a lot of

attention for its new cover. an illustration of bin laden's face with a red x over it. the others who got same treatment, adolf hitler, saddam hussein. instead of immediately calling police late friday, an air france act escorted a man to a tsa checkpoint and by the time cops arrived, he was putting his shoes back on and his luggage was already loaded on to his flight. he pled guilty to disorderly conduct and paid a $250 fine. a washington state middle schoolteacher finally gets to shave. on september 11th, 2001, gary wedle promised he wouldn't shave until osama bin laden was captured or killed. he thought it would take a month or two. but he heard the news on television ten years later and didn't wait for the president's announcement before taking off his overgrown facial hair.

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with who you love. mmmmm. kellogg's frosted flakes... they're g-r-r-reat! good catch dad. [ laughs ] welcome back to msnbc. i'm contessa brewer. emotions are running high as americans process the death of the world's most wanted terrorist. 72% of americans say they're relieved bin laden is dead, according to a new washington post poll. 60% say they're proud. and 58% say they're happy. only 16% responded in a survey saying they're afraid. well, the world got a look at the spontaneous jubilant reactions to the news the man responsible for such incredible american tragedy had been killed. today, we're seeing a backlash from commenters on militant islamic message boards. one poster wrote, just looking at those beer-drinking, hog-eating, incestuous rednecks all celebrating outside the white house, really a sad bunch of people.

another said, please, let them celebrate, they're celebrating their own end. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel is in benghazi, libya. what broader reaction are you getting in the muslim world to bin laden's death? >> reporter: thankfully nothing like the comments by what appear to be militant bin laden supporters on the internet, hiding from the anonymity of wherever they're posting those blog sites. the reaction across the arab world, while considerably more muted than the one in the united states, for obvious reasons, the united states was the target of bin laden's first attack, 9/11, first major attack, the reaction in this part of the world has been also to celebrate it. people here feel that bin laden brought a bad reputation to the muslim world. it was because of al qaeda that when people from not libya, they didn't travel much, but people from egypt and even the gulf

states went abroad, they got extra support. they were looked at when they travelled to europe and the united states with a great deal of suspicion. that's the first reaction. the second reaction we get from people here and we were just out on the streets of benghazi talking to people about this subject is that they hope this will now end the american occupations in iraq, in afghanistan, and that the u.s. will be able to turn a page. the last thing about the burial, this has been described, the burial at sea as according to islamic tradition. well, people in this part of the world don't really know what islamic tradition the united states appears to be talking about. burial at sea, having your body dumped off the side of an aircraft carrier is not any islamic tradition that anyone in this part of the world heard of. >> the u.s. military clarified and said they were trying just to meet the 24-hour deadline or whatever, however you want to

describe it, for getting the body interred, but -- and the fact was they said, you know, we understand that burial at sea was really only advisable in muslim tradition when there was no other option, but in this case, they were concerned about trying to get a country to accept the body and also worried about it becoming a shrine for others then too. >> yeah. >> richard, thank you so much for the report there from benghazi. we're getting new details about how the raid on osama bin laden's compound went down. two special ops teams of navy s.e.a.l.s flew to the compound in the dead of night. one of the choppers went down inside the compound. that wasn't planned. another chopper took its place and u.s. officials say the s.e.a.l.s stormed the compound and found bin laden on the floor of the residence. one commando recognized the al qaeda leader and fired two bullets into his head. there is the choppers going down in the animation.

the troops then boarded bin laden's body on to one of the choppers, which flew it to a u.s. aircraft carrier waiting nearby. and the teams blew up that disabled chopper. ryan macomby is a retired u.s. navy captain, served as the commanding officer of s.e.a.l. team two. good to see you today. >> good afternoon, contessa. >> let me ask you about this kind of training and how much training it took for the mission. we know that there were mock-ups built, on both u.s. coasts to allow the s.e.a.l.s to practice going into this compound. how essential was that before it actually happened? >> well that type of thing is completely essential. i don't think we need to talk about the tactics and procedures the s.e.a.l.s use in this, which would put them at risk. but if you go back to the raid, the rehearsal was somewhere in the vicinity of 145 times.

and it was an execution of an operation that has gone down in history as one of the finest ever. so the repetition and execution is critical. >> it is really stunning to me that the original mission was planned for 30 minutes. and then the chopper went down and they had to spend some time dealing with that downed chopper and it was all of eight minutes that it took them. this is a minutely planned mission. >> absolutely. it is the flexibility and you're looking at your options and the what ifs that you go through throughout an operation and always do. these guys are exceptionally well trained, the finest 1% of the youth we have in america. this year will actually be the 50th anniversary of the creation of the s.e.a.l.s. and it is a testament to what america can do when tuts its mind to it. >> are there pitfalls here? we know the story about the woman that was being used as a

human shield when the s.e.a.l.s went in. she was shot and killed. there were also two women who were injured in this process. is that mentally an obstacle that the s.e.a.l.s have to train for, have to prepare for, that there might be other people who get pulled into this and they're not targets, but they might become collateral damage? >> i don't believe anybody ever trains to shoot a civilian. i think that it is a reactionary force and mission completion takes priority over what is being done. it is always a difficult situation, but the final execution, the mission is a priority. >> captain ryan macomby, thank you very much for your time today, sir. >> you're quite welcome. good afternoon. the army corps of engineers blasted a hole in a missouri levee to save a town in illinois from flooding. the blast lasted two seconds and lowered the mississippi river by about a foot and a half.

so we have looped the video here and you can see in the dark of night, and there goes the explosion at the levee. the weather channel's mike seidel has the latest from metropolis, illinois. >> reporter: good afternoon, contessa. the reason the army corps did that last night was to bring the water level down on the ohio river and thus lower the pressure against that levee and save that town of 3,000. and it has worked, as you mentioned. the levee there goes up to 64 feet. the water last night, an all time crest, beating out the 1937 crest by more than two feet at just under 62 feet. it still, this morning, more than 20 feet above flood stage and will be a week or long brother it gets back below flood stage. it will take a while for the rivers to back off. but the sun is out. and the rain has ended. the river is back. there is that debris line, you can see some leaves and stikz and the water is back to here. horizontally it has gone down seven or eight feet. vertically a few inches. that's in the right direction. there is the river. it has come in three and a half

city blocks. the ohio in the distance, you can see the bay monte hotel there, the harris casino, which has been close since last week, is literally sitting out there it seems like in the middle of the ohio river. over there, folks have been moving items back in their home. on the other side of the street, they have got a play flower truck and they're thinking about moving furniture out because they heard the river is going to come up even more. well, officially it is not supposed to do that. so we'll keep our fingers crossed, the fact that it has gone down already. good news, dry weather through the weekend. but, again, many creeks and rivers still over their banks. record flooding or major flooding up and down the ohio and the southern half of the mississippi river. and until all this water drains out into the gulf of mexico, somebody along these rivers will have issues with flooding. back to you. >> mike, thanks. u.s. officiales say dna tests proved they killed osama bin laden with a 99.9% certainty. how can they be so sure without having a sample of his dna? we'll be right back.

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i'm andrea mitchell. coming up on "andrea mitchell reports," we're live on capitol hill. congress is back and lawmakers want answers from pakistan. we'll talk to the intelligence chairs from the senator and the house. pakistan's ambassador to the united states, we'll see you in 15 minutes here on "andrea mitchell reports." afghan taliban members have proclaimed they don't believe it. they don't think osama bin laden was killed in that raid in pakistan. but the u.s. says facial recognition software matched bin laden with 95% accuracy. the dna results came back

absolutely positive. and bin laden's youngest wife survived the attack and went on to identify his body. lawrence kobilinsky is an expert in forensic science at john j. college in new york. let's talk about the dna. more than one dna sample was used to identify osama bin laden's remains and that there are places where his dna has been available in the past that the united states has been preparing for this kind of eventuality. what does the result, 99.9% accurate tell you about what dna they got? >> well, in typical dna procedures where we're identifying an individual, we have an exemplar, a known specimen and unknown specimen. the rarity of this genetic profile is so rare, there is no other possibility. that's not what we're saying here. we're talking about 99.9. that tells me that we're talking about a familial match, siblings or children of osama bin laden

have been genetically typed and then compared to bin laden, the blood that the s.e.a.l.s collected and brought back, that's the kind of evidence that gives you 99.9. >> so 99.99 versus 99.99999, anyway it holds up in court, right? >> no question about it. you combine the dna, the facial recognition, the stature, just the appearance of the face, you can't deny it's him. >> what kind of physical evidence might the military have taken from the corpse of bin laden? >> there was no autopsy done. but they may have taken hair samples, cheek samples, but they have his blood. in terms of genetics, they have everything they need. >> is it unusual they were able to turn around the dna results so quickly? >> yes, it is. they were presumably using some very rapid type of instrumentation that could be used either in the field or more than likely in afghanistan, at a crime lab there, or on the ship.

>> and, larry, do you think we lose anything by disposing of his body in the sea so quickly? >> absolutely not. i think otherwise he would have been a shrine. and it could have been more problems for us. >> in terms of evidence, in terms of moving forward in the future, like any sort of proof needed, anything like that? >> i think we know it's him. he's gone. and that's all we want. it's over. >> larry kobilinsky, thank you very much. appreciate your time. >> thank you. we have been talking about whether the u.s. government should publicize the pictures of bin laden's corpse. tallis responds, i don't think it's appropriate to release photos because it may lead to a backlash. i always like to hear what you have to say about the stories we cover. reach me on facebook, twitter, e-mail, contessa@msnbc.com.

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political side bar now. bin laden may be gone from the region, but scott brown still wants to report for duty in afghanistan. brown's been in the national guard for 30 years. now he's asking his unit to send him to afghanistan for two weeks of training this summer. brown would need a special waver, but it has been done before. senator lindsey graham spent eight days there in 2008. president obama is getting a bipartisan praise for the successful raid on bin laden's compound. he got a standing ovation at the white house last night. former vice president dick cheney said it was a job well done, and took credit for developing the intelligence network that made it happen. rush limbaugh congratulated the president but later mocked him. and then there was this -- >> and we thank our president, we thank president bush for having made the right calls to set up this victory. >> sarah palin apparently

couldn't quite come out with the current president's name while she was talking about the mission in colorado yesterday. at least someone remembered. take a look here. >> good news, osama bin laden is dead. the bad news there is no bad news. osama bin laden is dead. that's got news. >> that's right, bin laden is dead. just like the republicans chances in 2012. >> looks like president obama has a new campaign slogan, yes, i did! you can see he was giddy. >> may god bless the united states of america. >> watch what he does here. you can see he's just -- you see he was -- >> while many of the people we have seen celebrating the death of osama bin laden were in elementary school on september

11th, 2001, some are now in college. early monday morning, about a thousand students slashed in the water at ohio state university's mirror lake when they heard the news that bin laden had been killed. a similar scene played out at penn state. huge crowds gathered on campus to express how happy they were. and at west virginia university, in morgantown, students draped themselves in flags and took to the streets to celebrate. steve and timothy are students at the university of oklahoma. great to see you. >> hi, contessa. >> so let me ask you, you both were so young when 9/11 happened. why did this news spark such a need to go out and spontaneously celebrate, tim? >> it was really a feeling of relea release. for ten years we had been searching for him. and i remember being in middle school and seeing the attacks on 9/11 and the relief came from

the feeling that we finally got him. >> and, steve what about you? what kind of a memory do you have from 9/11 that all these years later sparked that need to go out and show your jubilation? >> absolutely. i remember sitting in my science classroom in sixth grade and the principal came on and said, hey, switch to the news. and we watched the second plane hit the tower and just watching that was painful and that whole day, we were just solemn and so it is really a great thing to know there is finally justice for those 3,000 plus people that were killed. >> and while you guys are attending college in oklahoma, no doubt some of your classmates from high school have decided to enter the armed forces. do you guys know anyone personally is who is serving in the military? >> actually my old roommate was -- is actually in the air force rotc and is about to get deployed. the thing about ou is there is a lot of military here on campus with the two major bases in

oklahoma. and it is a very strong rotc presence on campus. >> and i'm from little rock, arkansas. i have a lot of high school friends including andy perkins and randy perkins who have been over to afghanistan a number of times. >> for those folks, this must seem like a just reward for all the hard work they put in and not just for your friends, but for the ones who have over the last ten years or so have been working to make sure that america stays safe from terrorists. >> yeah, absolutely. that sums it up perfectly. that's why i think we all went out to celebrate what is not only for the victims receiving justice, but for all those men and women overseas that have fought for so long and are going to continue to be fighting the war on terror. >> do you think this is also a moment where for the rest of your life, when you sit down with your grandkids in a few generations that you say where you were the moment when osama bin laden, when you heard he had been killed? >> without a doubt.

just like with september 11th, we're all going to remember where we were, we have all the country songs to remember where we were and we'll remember where we were on may 1st, 2011. >> steve, timothy, gentlemen, thank you very much. good luck with your studies? >> thank you. i'm contessa brewer. thank you for watching today. i'll see you back here tomorrow, noon eastern, 9:00 a.m. out west. president obama welcomes prince charles to the white house. up next, "andrea mitchell reports" live from capitol hill. hi, andrea. thanks so much. we're live on capitol hill. congress is back and lawmakers have big questions about how osama bin laden was able to hide in plain sight in pakistan. we'll talk to pakistan's ambassador to the united states. plus, white house deputy national security adviser dennis mcdonough. "andrea mitchell reports" is up next. ♪

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right now on "andrea mitchell reports," defining moment. the decision to launch a high risk team of commandos instead of an unmanned bombing mission. and then the heart stopping minutes when a helicopter

stalled and pakistan scrambled f-16s not knowing if the americans were friend or foe. what was found inside the compound and what did pakistan know? >> clearly there is some type of support network that provided him assistance and help to facilitate contact between bin laden and his operatives. whether or not those individuals inside of the pakistani government is unknown at this point. >> on the hill, congress is back with big questions about pakistan and what this all means for afghanistan and the war. >> with the death of bin laden, some people are sure to ask why don't we just pack up and leave afghanistan? so it is even more compelling that we examine carefully what is at stake, what goals are legitimate, and realistic, and what is our real security challenge.