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tv   Andrea Mitchell Reports  MSNBC  May 3, 2011 1:00pm-2:00pm EDT

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deputy national security adviser dennis mcdonough. from capitol hill, the intelligence chairs from both the house and the senate, senator dianne feinstein and congressman mike rogers. plus, on the diplomacy, pakistan's ambassador to the united states joins us. and good day. i'm andrea mitchell live from capitol hill. the death of osama bin laden may go down as president obama's most significant foreign policy achievement. now the white house and u.s. intelligence agencies are mining a treasure trove of intelligence data seized from the compound. nbc's chuck todd is chief white house correspondent and the co-host of "the daily rundown". bring us up to date. what is the white house saying on their plans, whether or not they're going to go forward with a proof of death, how they're handling all of the intelligence that they have now obtained from the compound? >> reporter: one thing that folks should realize, no decision has been made about whether to do this or not. you heard john brennan, both this morning, this is the
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president's chief deputy having to do with national terrorism and homeland security, you heard him say both yesterday and today that he finds it interesting that nobody -- they don't feel as if they have to prove anything because nobody in the terrorist community, folks in al qaeda are not pushing back on this. he finds that interesting and almost sort of more proof that they know that the other side knows that we got bin laden and that bin laden is dead. so that's one aspect that i think they look this morning and realize they don't feel the pressure of having to do this for the rest of the world. that said, they seem to be trying to figure out not only whether to release, but then what to release. do they release pictures of bin laden right after he was shot? do they wait and show parts of the burial at sea? all of those issues are being debated right now. but it doesn't seem clear that they made that final decision. and very quickly, by the way,
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andrea, i learned about among the things they have gathered in the intelligence from the compound, apparently are a bunch of more bin laden videos. what they don't know are the copies of bin laden videos that have yet -- that are already released by haven't been made public, or whether these were ones that have just never been sent out. >> and, chuck, you interviewed couldn't leeza rice earlier today. this is really a bipartisan moment to the extent that almost universally there is praise for the decision, gutsy decision. this is what condi rice, the former national security adviser and secretary of state, said to you today. >> i do think it says that president obama showed that he, in this -- in this circumstance, really took on the mantle of commander in chief in the war on terror. >> so, chuck, this could really be the most important moment in this presidency. we don't know what the future holds. but the fact that they made the
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decision, even though there was some in the national security team pushing back against it, they did not know that osama bin laden was physically present there. they had a very high degree of certainty on the intelligence, we believe that the cia was pushing hard to make that assumption, but that really was -- that was first gutsy decision and then the decision to not bomb the place to smithereens, to actually go in with a commando team so that they could get him and get the intelligence. >> reporter: because the risk of doing the commando team, if it didn't work is the -- and if bin laden wasn't there, was the long-term impact it would have had on u.s.-pakistani relations. already, right now, not in great shape, would have further eroded this fledgling partnership. a lot of people might say not exactly a great partnership right now. >> chuck todd, a lot more to come from the white house throughout the day and with you on "nightly news." thank you so much.
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osama bin laden may have spent, we now know, as many as six years living in this compound with 12-foot high walls topped with barbed wire, sticking out like a sore thumb in the outskirts of abbottabad, pakistan. simon mosin is live for us there. one of the most compelling questions is how could this compound have been there, less than a mile from the pakistan military academy surrounded by military on land owned by many military -- by the army itself, without them knowing that he was there? >> i just about got your question. but we spent the day at the compound. as you say, how could he well have been in this compound without anyone noticing. just to give you a sense of where this compound is, it is about five minutes away from where i'm standing now. and this is in between the military installations on the main road in abbottabad and on the other side of it, pakistan's military academy. it is nestled right in the heart
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in the middle of all these military installations. a bit about the compound itself, you mentioned the tall boundary walls, it stuck out like a sore thumb. though it is not a very luxurious looking compound, it is a very simple, bricks and mortar building, there are some distinctive features. it is much larger than any of the other houses in that area. you mentioned that there is speculation for how long he might have been there, right under the military and pakistani government's nose. well, neighbors told me that this house started being built around 2005. but we don't know exactly when he might have moved in. >> thank you so much. today, senator dianne feinstein confirmed that bin laden's compound had been under 24/7 surveillance for months. and that she, as the intelligence chair, knew about the site six months ago. and california senator feinstein chairs the intelligence committee and joins me here. what more can you tell us about
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this extraordinary operation and the decision to take it? >> well, i this i you hit it. it was a very gutsy decision by the president, made by the president. he could have sent some missiles in there and destroyed everybody and everything. he didn't do that. it was a tactical commando raid. and the risks. and you saw that with the one helicopter. and yet these commandos now, jsoc, they're so well trained. they know what the mission was. they know the time they had, they moved quickly, they moved expeditious expeditiously. and it was a total success. >> i understand there was some pushback. there was some on the national security team who pointed out, they had no way to get virnl eviden visual evidence he was there. they had other intelligence data, but it was really a gutsy play. >> that's true.
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there was no visual identification of osama bin laden. >> before going in. >> correct. apparently some of the surveillance picked up someone pacing back and forth in the courtyard. but they were unable to make a true identity. but it really was, i think this really was an intelligence success because the intelligence was brought together. it was red teamed and looked at and red teamed and then looked at. and it really emanated from the one major courier who was moving out, going 90 miles, making a phone call, taking the battery out, using al qaeda trade craft and then the size and the expense and the construction of that particular place lent people to believe, well, some high value target must be there, who is it? >> who else could it be? >> that's one of the -- one of
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the ways, i think the conclusion was drawn. i think the president obviously did absolutely the right thing. but, you know if it had gone badly, it would have been a considerable risk to him and i think the fact that it went well is really to the great benefit of the american intelligence community that since 2011 has really -- or 9/11 has really pulled itself together, the stove pipes are down, the intelligence is much more seamless, and it was a tremendous victory for the analysts. i just want to say thank you to them. >> leon panetta actually did his first television interview today with brian williams, on "nightly news" tonight. we have a little bit of that to show you right now. >> oh, good. >> is the world safer? >> brian, i don't think there is any question that, you know, you get the number one terrorist in
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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 ourselves that killing osama bin laden kills al qaeda. al qaeda still remains the 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. >> now, senator, what about pakistan's role in all of this? because the conclusion from john brennan and others in the white house certainly has been that there is no way that -- he didn't have support from inside the country. and the conclusion needs to be asked, was it government support? >> well, you're correct. and leon panetta is absolutely right. and, you know, he's been a very gutsy leader for the cia. and a very good leader for the cia. and i think that's helped pull this thing together as well.
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>> does pakistan have some real hard questions to answer? >> this is the question. how can the pakistanis not know that for six years, osama bin laden was living in this compound, eight times bigger than anything else in the area, within a mile of a major military academy. how can this happen? why would no one register curiosity about who was there unless somehow, some way, they were warned off. and said, this is, you know, out of limits, nobody touch it, whatever happens there happens there. and we need to find that out. >> and those are the questions you're going to be asking. >> i'm going to be asking that. we hope to have a joint classified hearing with armed services tomorrow morning and we'll ask some of those questions, you can be sure. >> senate intelligence chair, dianne feinstein, thank you for
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coming over. we appreciate it. see more, of course, of brian williams' exclusive interview with leon panetta tonight on "nbc nightly news". up next, jeffrey goldberg. should the u.s. reconsider aid to pakistan and just ahead, pakistan's ambassador to the u.s. joining us on the hot seat. and send me your thoughts on twitter at mitcher repo eell re. t that i needed to quit, and i went online to find a way. ♪ chantix -- it's a non-nicotine pill. i didn't want nicotine to give up nicotine. while you're taking the medication, for the first week, you can go ahead and smoke. [ male announcer ] prescription chantix is proven to help people quit smoking. [ mike ] when i was taking the chantix, it reduced the urge to smoke. [ male announcer ] some people had changes in behavior,
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leon panetta has suggested today the united states cannot fully trust pakistan and its government. the cia chief says that pakistan was not made aware of the raid against bin laden for fear it could "jeopardize the mission." jeff goldberg is national correspondent at the atlantic
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and joins me now. we had rough patches before with pakistan, but this is such a dramatic breach. what is your take on it? we had a chance to talk ambassador haquani. >> we have been in crisis with pakistan for some time with the raymond davis case, as you recall. we don't have definitive proof that the pakistani government or elements of the pakistani government knew where bin laden was or if they were involved in protecting him. i'm a little worried that we're all getting ahead of ourselves here and asserting things that might turn out not to be true. they very well might turn out not to be true but we don't know everything yet. >> i'm very struck by the fact, jeff, that the -- it would be in
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the white house's interest to try to smooth this over. and they are not. that john brennan, leon panetta, john kerry, fully briefed, all suggesting that there is a lack of trust here. certainly from the american side. >> right. there is certainly a lack of -- >> there is certainly a lack of trust. but the problem that they face, and one of the reasons you see president obama and everyone else talking about excellent security and intelligence cooperation in the past, one of the problems we're dealing with is that we really don't have a choice here. we cannot declare pakistan an enemy for any number of reasons including the fact that in certain areas, pakistan is doing a lot of work to combat terrorism. what you have is a situation in which you have elements of their intelligence agency that might be supporting the taliban or might be sympathetic to al qaeda and then other items of the intelligence community 245 that are not, the army, the same situation. you have the civilian leadership that you want to but rees and
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help rather than condemn and isolate. >> that is certainly a big factor because we see what happens when there is a vacuum of leadership in these fragile societies. this is what john kerry had to say at a foreign relations committee hearing today. >> we have to consider the regional context, particularly pakistan's role. and what bin laden's presence there says about that alliance and about the prospects for peace in afghanistan. sanctuaries in pakistan continue to threaten the prospects for peace in afghanistan. >> so that does put it -- in terms of the bigger picture, we're about to head into a critical period of review, the president has to decide on the pace of withdrawals from afghanistan. and all of this is very, very complex. india, also on the other border. >> this brings in sharp relief the essential dilemma of afghanistan, which is that we
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cannot really have success in afghanistan unless we have success in pakistan in dealing with the haqani network and the safe havens. i think, question, we're moving toward a crisis, but i think the administration understands as many others do that there is no alternative but to continue to try to engage in control and criticize when necessary. but we're dealing with pakistan for the long-term. we don't have a choice. >> thank you very much, jeff goldberg, from atlantic. >> thank you. up next, the politico briefing with martin katie and education nation, president obama recognized the 2011 teacher of the year and state teachers this morning in the rose garden. maryland high schoolteacher michelle shear is the nation's teacher of the year. today at 2:00 eastern on "news nation." she'll talk to tamron about her achievements.
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there is a pride in what this nation stands for. and what we can achieve, that runs far deeper than party, for deeper than politics. >> that was last night, but already this morning it only has been two days since the successful mission. lawmakers already not singing kumbaya. house republicans now moving ahead with legislation to increase domestic drilling and dismantle the president's health care law and senate democrats have promised they will follow a resolution on bin laden's death with a repeal of oil company subsidies. martin katie is politico's washington bureau chief and joins us now from politico. you see the two sides coming together after last night's dinner where everyone was joining hands. >> yeah. that lasted -- that didn't last very long, did it? >> not at all, martin.
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where do you see the real fraught lines now, on health care, on the budget, the larger budget issues, on the oil subsidy repeals? >> i think it is going to be on the budget, the debt limit, deficit reduction. the republicans are holding fast on the debt limit. they're not ready to roll out their plan. some democrats still want a straightup vote. but as you mentioned, in the beginning, last night there was innovation for the president. this morning, they're going right back to their domestic agenda, back to partisan warfare. people wonder why congress has such low approval ratings. it sometimes is this sort of thing. can't seem to latch on to it as an institution, to this national moment for more than a 24-hour news cycle. >> do you think there is a way that the white house can try to gain some advantage, politically, frankly, from the foreign policy success? if it had failed, they would be being hammered. it would have been really almost
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a jimmy carter iran desert crash moment. >> exactly. i think there is a chance for obama to once again look like the dealmaker, look like someone who can close the deal. he made the deal an hour before the government's shutdown last month with john boehner and harry reid. they closed the deal with the special forces, with the s.e.a.l.s and osama bin laden. there is a sense among democrats that the president should be emboldened as he goes into other negotiations on the domestic front, deficit reduction, the debt limit, something about oil and gas subsidies and oil and gas production. the president has momentum here on this huge event in pakistan and now, you know, the democrats hope that he'll have some leverage as he goes into the next big negotiation. >> martin katie from politico, thank you very much. up next, pakistan's ambassador to the united states joins us. plus, live here on capitol hill, house intelligence chairman mike rogers and democratic congressional campaign chairman steve israel.
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and a special honor today for the late president gerald ford in the capital rotunda. a bronze statue unveiled in the place where he lay in repose four and a half years ago. family, friends and congressional leaders attended the service. more than the white house, president ford always said that the house of representatives was his real home. his daughter susan ford bails represented the family today. >> dad, the message fills this rotunda. you did not let america down. you kept your promise, you healed our nation, and you allowed us to dream again. ♪ [ male announcer ] in 2011, at&t is at work, building up our wireless network all across america. we're adding new cell sites... increasing network capacity, and investing billions of dollars to improve your wireless network experience. from a single phone call to the most advanced data download, we're covering more people in more places than ever before
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rising waters seemed to be receding. the national weather service confirmed a record 312 tornadoes touched down nationwide during one 24 hour period last week. alabama remains the hardest hit, 23 tornados in that state are responsible for a rising death toll now at 250 alabama alone. the total of 342 people perished across six states in those storms. and scott brown is headed to afghanistan. brown is a member of the massachusetts army national guard and he'll be heading to the war torn country for his annual training in the hopes he says that it will help him better understand the ongoing conflict there. british police today say they have arrested five men under that country's anti-terrorism laws. the men all from london and all in their 20s were stopped by authors near a nuclear power plant. congress is back awork on the hill, facing fights over the budget and war and peace, the debt ceiling to come. will the successful raid on
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osama bin laden's hideaway give president obama more clout on capitol hill? we're joined by congressional chairman of the democratic congressional campaign committee, steve israel. your district outside of manhattan, near ground zero, the losses suffered by your constituents, how do you and they feel knowing that osama bin laden has been killed? >> when the news broke that we had killed osama bin laden, like most americans i was receiving e-mails and texts, but the movement important e-mails and text, most profound and moving, were from people who lost somebody on 9/11. in my district we lost nearly 200 people on 9/11. >> 200 people from your district alone. >> from my district, 45, 50 miles east of new york city. and there was one word that was dominant in all of those texts, all of those e-mails. that is justice. i heard from one woman from north port, who said tomorrow i get to wake up my kids, and tell
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them that there was justice. >> people are still arguing today over the detainees, the initial tip on this came during the george w. bush administration, and it came in the process of interrogations in guantanamo. the tip that led to the nickname of the courier, we then identified the courier and over the years narrowed the trail down and it led to osama bin laden. does this make you think or rethink the whole value of that very controversial process? >> well, there is lots of discussion about what tips led to what -- how well informed they were and what tips were more effective than others. this mission was based on an aggregate of information that came from many different sources and many different ways. and i think it is really a tribute to our military, to our intelligence community, and to a gutsy move bit president of the united states. that's what achieved this
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success. relitigating how the tips were generated, and how they were received should be left to history. we need to relish this moment and we need to make sure that we use this moment, not just to relish it, but to create new opportunities, new opportunities for democracy, new opportunities in afghanistan, we need to use this as a pivot point with the taliban. we need to use this as a pivot point elsewhere in the world so i would rather focus on where we go from now than how we got here. >> where do you go from now on the budget, the debt ceiling and all the other issues if this had not gone well, the president would be suffering in so many ways. and politics is part of that. now he's possibly lifted, boosted by the strength he's shown and people praising the wisdom of the decision. will it give you any leverage in budget talks or are we back to square one on capitol hill? >> no question in my mind that while we should not be politicizing what happened in -- with osama bin laden, had it not gone the way it went, the
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republicans would be in attack mode. they would be calling for the president's impeachment, they would be trying to capitalize on it. don't believe -- even as the chairman and the democratic congressional campaign committee, i don't think we should capitalize for political gain on this moment. but there is no question that the republicans would have attempted to capitalize on anything lacking success. i think the president does have clout. he got a standing ovation from republicans at leadership meeting in the white house yesterday. i think this does put him in a better position. and i especially appreciated the speech that he gave to the country where he didn't just talk about the importance of the killing of osama bin laden to our national security, but that this reminds us that we can do anything as americans, and now we got to tackle the significant economic challenges that we have. >> congressman steve israel, i know you got to run to a vote. thank you very much for coming over. >> thank you. >> good to see you. pakistan is facing a pair of difficult questions today.
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first, did the military or the government there know where bin laden has been hiding for as long as six years? if not what does that say about the country's intelligence? and its military. husain h husain haqqani is the ambassador to the united states. first of all, to your knowledge, did pakistan know and if not, why not? he was living in a military community, a mile from the military academy, on land surrounding land owned by the army. how could they not have been suspicious about that compound? >> andrea, these are questions that we would like answers to ourselves. the fact remains that no one in the united states commented that the pakistani government was anyway complicit in keeping osama bin laden there. that's something we should be very clear about. however, did our intelligence services or our law enforcement fail to perform optimally in not discovering him earlier?
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that is a question we are examining ourselves. we need to confront that question. they there should, however, be no doubt that pakistanis today are as gratified by osama bin laden's elimination as the rest of the world. he was a threat to us as he was to the rest of the world. many pakistanis have been killed by terrorism, orchestrated by al qaeda and its allies. so there should be no misunderstanding on that score. >> do you think the united states should have notified pakistan and given pakistan advance warning of this, or do you -- do you feel in any way that this was an intrusion on pakistan's sovereignty to have these commandos come in? >> well, a lot of people in pakistan are upset over the intrusion into -- and a statement has been made to that effect that has, i've seen, received some media commentary. all i will say is that we have had a situation, i understand
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the american concerns, i understand why america acted the way it did, we will talk about it between ourselves. we are allies and partners and sometimes allies and partners face embarrassing, a difficult moment. but we will work together because that is the only way forward. look, it is not in america's interest to point the finger at pakistan and it is in its interest to help us, guide us, make sure that something like this does not happen and we bring the war against terrorism, which is our shared war to a successful conclusion. >> now, your former president musharraf, pervez musharraf, was on bloomberg earlier. this is what he had to say about the raid. >> this was the best good military action, but having said that, it was not good politically sensitivities of pakistan regarding the violation of the sovereignty of pakistan. any other troops other than
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pakistanis crossing the border, coming into pakistan to operate is not taken well at all by the people of pakistan. >> there have been some protests today. can you understand why americans would be angry about more than $20 billion in u.s. aid over the past decade and the fact that a lot of americans are questioning whether pakistan was letting osama bin laden for years and years hide -- >> let's get this out of the way. i mean, if americans are upset about having given assistance and aid to pakistan, there are pakistanis who are also very upset that despite all that pakistan has done, despite the fact that we are the only country that lost generals in fighting terrorism, despite the fact that our leader was killed by terrorist s despite the fact that we're victims of terrorism as america is, this is something that is an emotional level. let's not get into that.
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we're allies and partners who sometimes do things together on this particular occasion, the president of the united states decided that he is not going to take us into confidence and he did not, but the outcome is something that is satisfactory for the world and what we need to do is work on mechanisms where by in the future we can act together. and at the same time, understand the complexities of another country. americans would not be happy if the canadians crossed their border without informing them, let alone somebody coming from afar. we understand america is very powerful and respect that and we are allies of america because of its -- among other reasons because of its ability to do the kind of things that have been done in the war against terror, successfully to make the whole world safe. but that said, we should show some understanding for different levels of sent s and different countries including pakistan and let's not make this into a federal case. let's go beyond this and work on the specifics. the specific is who knew what when and that is something we
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will together get to the bottom of because it was not in pakistan's interest for osama bin laden to be found in pakistan and no serious pakistani will say osama bin laden should have been in our country. we are glad to be rid of him, we are glad the world has got rid of him. >> thank you very much. thanks very much, ambassador husain haqqani from pakistan. up next, dennis mcdonough, one of the handful in the situation room watching through those tense moments, waiting as the raid on osama bin laden's pound went down. [ manager ] you know...
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welcome back. we have a new poll out today from the washington post about president obama's approval ratings. chris alisa joins us. chris, these numbers from the washington post pew poll indicates a bump up for the president. take us through it. >> sure. not terribly surprising, andrea if you look back in history after big foreign policy moments, the president usually benefits a little bit from a rallying effect that is what appears to be happening in the washington post poll. president obama was at 49% the last time we did this. we did an evernight poll last night. he's at 56% approval. it is not the 80 plus percent approval rating george w. bush had after september 11th but it is helping the president at the margins. i don't think this alters what we're going to be talking about in november 2012 which i still tend to think is the economy. but it does help the president on leadership, people feel relieved that osama bin laden is
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no longer with us and this helps solidify the president on national security. remember, that's been an attack republicans have leveled since 2001. this will help mitigate that for the president of the united states. margins. not a fundamental thank of what we'll be talking about. >> it does define him as commander in chief. some said this is the moment when barack obama came a real commander in chief. thises with a military and intelligence decision that would have perhaps scared off a lesser person. republican or democrat. not an easy call. >> andrea, the thing i think is interesting to remember too is if this hadn't worked out, let's say we spent all these months and years trying to get k toinga bin laden, we if this had gone
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whereon, he would have been blamed. the fact it went right, he deserves credit for it. he think he'll get credit for it in the eyes of the american people. the thing i wonder about is how long will this bump in approval continue? that's key to watch. not how high the number go, how long it lasts. that's important when it comes to political calculation for 2012. >> and, chris it will have a political impact obviously. we don't know how long lasting that impact will be. as you point out, had it not gone well, this would be a very different, very different story today. >> and we would be talking about it. >> exactly. well, thank you very much. coming up next, just being seated here next to me, we'll be talking to mike rogers, the house intelligence chair and from the white house, deputy national security adviser dennis mcdonough joining us. this is "andrea mitchell reports." coming up on "newsnation," for the first time we're hearing from cia chief leon panetta, the
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president gave him the orders to make finding or killing osama bin laden a top priority. now what panetta is revealing about the mission and new details about the phone call that may have led to bin laden. our "newsnation" gut check. do you think the white house should release the images of osama bin laden's body? we're expecting to hear from the white house press secretary jay carney any minute now. an update from him. all that and more ahead for you on "newsnation." are you anxious to protect your family with life insurance... but afraid you can't afford it?
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the president and his war cabinet had a front row seat to sunday's operation as audio and visual images of the raid were transmitted in real time back to washington. dennis mcdonough is the president's deputy national security adviser and joins us now from the white house. dennis, first of all, this was a very tough decision. you did not have eye balls on osama bin laden. you had preponderance of evidence he was there. you also, the president decided to do this by decided to do this
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by commando raid preserving the evidence. how tough was that call? >> thanks a lot for having me with you this afternoon. it's always good to be with you. i'd say a couple things. first of all, the president didn't have those firm confirmations but what he did have was the ability to rely on an unbelievably capable interagency intelligence team led by the bin laden team out of the agency. along with the nga team and the nsa team. unbelievable amount of capability and years of experience in that effort. two, he also could rely on secretary of defense, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and this assault team. an unbelievably capable and experienced team, and i think in that atmosphere, the president did make a tough call but he made it relying on very capable individuals. >> dennis, in that room, in the situation room, what were you seeing and what were you feeling as the chopper stalled, then
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later when the f-16s were scrambled? what were you seeing when you were watching this operation go down? >> well, i think that as john brennan indicated yesterday, everybody was feeling a little bit anxious, but i did notice that the president was pretty steely in his resolve throughout this and whenever he was asked about this throughout the course of the day and frankly throughout the course of the deliberation on this, he continually brought it back to two things. one is the need for this country to resolve this issue, to bring to closure bin laden himself, and the other is the risk to the unbelievably courageous individuals undertaking this effort. that was not only true throughout the deliberation on this but certainly true throughout the day on sunday. >> dennis mcdonough, thank you for joining us. i know you have a busy day and a lot of questions still being asked about the role of pakistan in all of this. congressman mike rogers joins us. he's a former agent with the fbi.
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if you were an fbi man looking at this evidence, a compound eight times the size of the neighbors', land owned by the military, the military academy a mile away, what would be your conclusion as to whether pakistan's officials knew, had to know, should have known, knew without asking. >> it sure leads to a lot of questions. just a few hours ago i received new information that would lead me to believe they didn't know as an institution. the isi didn't know as an institution -- >> the spy agency. >> the spy agency didn't know as an institution, the military didn't know as an institution, i don't think the government knew. there may have been elements that knew he was there. i don't believe as an institution, as a country, they knew he was there. >> should they have known? does it mean they're not competent? >> it's clearly embarrassing. this is clearly embarrassing for the pakistanis, and what i hope comes out of this is that we strengthen their resolve about helping us go after really hard targets that we know are in
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pakistan. i think this might be something that pries them loose and they have had an on again/off again, sometimes they help us, sometimes they don't. i will remind the public that 600 arrests of terror suspects in the settled areas of pakistan, and they sent their troops into the tribal areas of pakistan and have suffered pretty serious casualties, thousands of their men have died in combat fighting taliban and al qaeda. so they have in many ways helped us, but something like this happens, and it sure asks -- begs the question who did know. we're going to ask those questions but i think what i have seen in the last few hours tells me probably not institutional. >> what kind of information? >> it was just very clear, i can't talk about the type of information, the source or the method of information, but it was very clear to me after i took a look at it and had a chance to digest it that they were not aware -- >> that they were shocked in realtime. >> i think they're truly embarrassed, and i think they were shocked that, in fact, it
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was osama bin laden. >> does getting osama bin laden make it easier for us to begin thinking about drawing down in afghanistan? >> you know, two different fights i think. and i think every country, every operation has to be considered differently. no one should use this and say, well, see, this is the only way we should do this at all places. it doesn't always fit. and what we're fighting in afghanistan now is the resurgence of the taliban. the taliban is what aided al qaeda and gave them safe haven in afghanistan to conduct operations against the united states. >> mike rogers, the chairman of the house intelligence committee. thank you very much. >> thanks, andrea. >> that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." tamron has had a look at what's next. >> in our next hour, jay carney is about to hold a briefing. we could hear more about he tails on the mission that led to the death of osama bin laden and, of course, people want to know if the pictures of bin laden's body will be released.
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carnie will carney will be starting his briefing shortly. plus president obama's approval ratings rise. new details on the relationship between pakistan and the united states. building up our wireless network all across america. we're adding new cell sites... increasing network capacity, and investing billions of dollars to improve your wireless network experience. from a single phone call to the most advanced data download, we're covering more people in more places than ever before in an effort to give you the best network possible. at&t. rethink possible.
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together we'll make this mother's day right now "news nation" developing news, the white house daily press briefing from jay carney. let's listen in. >> the president and his top national security aides in the situation room were -- had available to them minute-by-minute updates on the operation and that photograph was taken during the operation, and they were looking at and listening to those updates. i can't get more specific than that, but this was during the operation and during those tense moments that mr. brennan described yesterday and this morning on television. >> why can't you get more specific without, you know, revealing technology or anything? >> well, i think specifically we don't talk about -- with any great detail how we get our
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realtime information for a variety of reasons. those meetings take place in the situation room for a reason. those rooms there are for secure communications. so i can't get more specific than that. i think it's been said so i can say that leon panetta, the director of the central intelligence agency was on a screen and communicating with those in the situation room and the president, so he was present in that room in that sense as well. >> so they were -- [ inaudible ]. >> we were receiving realtime minute-by-minute updates on -- excuse me, on the operation taking place in pakistan at that moment. but they were receiving a lot of information at once. >> okay. so brennan in his briefing yesterday made a couple of, i guess, misstatements or statements that later appear to be somewhat incorrect such as that the wife was shielding bin laden and it turned out it wasn't the wife and there may
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not have been a shield and it wasn't clear whether or not bin laden had a gun. are you guys in a fog of war in this or what gives? >> well, what is true is that we provided a great deal of information with great haste in order to inform you and through you the american public about the operation and how it transpired and the events that took place there in pakistan. and obviously some of the information came in piece by piece and is being reviewed and updated and elaborated on. so what i can tell you, i have a narrative that i can provide to you on the raid itself, on the bin laden compound in pakistan. on orders of the president a small u.s. team assaulted a secure compound in an affluent suburb of islamabad to capture or kill osama bin laden. the raid was conducted with u.s. military personnel