before him, john brennan, the chief counterterrorism adviser. we heard a lot from john brennan in that briefing, which lasted some 48 minutes. john brennan telling us a great deal of detail about the operation 20 or so hours ago that led to the killing of osama bin laden. listing -- listening in is our correspondent, katty kay, at the pentagon. huge amount of detail emerging. katty, i believe we cannot speak to her at the moment. if you can hear me -- i would just like a little of what we heard in that -- i would just outlined a little of what we heard in that news conference from john brennan. pakistan was not told about this operation until all u.s. personnel, the navy seals, were out of pakistani airspace, according to john brennan. he was asked, do you believe pakistanis didn't know he was there, and he said we are looking at the possibility he had some kind of support system. we're talking to the pakistanis of how he was able to stay there, and we're talking to the pakistanis on a regular basis. we learned this was an operation carried out

does the blame fall on john brennan's office? >> look, i was with john brennan today who was himself sort of suggesting his own frustration with the leaks. what happens here -- i don't believe it's john brennan's office. and information that comes out of the individual advisors doesn't come out without there being coordination across the inner agency. just don't buy that at all. what happens is this information resides down inside most of the agencies. so what will happen, it is a frustration to every administration, individuals will begin to leak things, not because they're being authorized to do it, but to prove that they have some access, to prove their own credibility with the press. and it is a frustration. it is very difficult to get a handle on for john brennan or the white house. >> quickly, debbie, i want to bring you in one more time here because you want you to react to this chief of naval operations telling cnn just a short time ago that the families of the s.e.a.l.s who were involved in that operation are -- he's abs

as john brennan and others have said, the president has said, we are continuing the fight against al qaeda every day, and the focus of that operation, of the u.s. personnel in afghanistan, is on al qaeda. the operation continues. the july 2011 transition date for the beginning of a drawdown remains very much in place. the pace of that drawdown will be determined by conditions on the ground. >> final question, any updates from the plans to release video or images? >> i don't have any updates on that except to echo what john brennan said this morning, which is that we are obviously reviewing information. we've made a great deal available to the public in remarkable time. we're talking about the most highly classified operation that this government has undertaken in many, many years, and the amount of information we've tried to provide to you in this short period of time is quite substantial. we will continue to review that and make decisions about the appropriateness of releasing more information as that review continues on. >> the pakistani government put out a statement in which they

the face on john brennan and dennis mcdunna. hillary looked tense. but she said she was suffering from a lerjis. -- allergies. >> there was a rush, the white house would say transparency to a certain degree efment how do you explain that? are they trying to hide information? or is it that people like us are trying to push them? >> about the only thing that did sort of go wrong with the way that they unfolded -- spilled out the story themselves and you're right, in the very first big briefing that the media got from john brennan was there was some inaccuracies. part of the problem they're trying to infold this story about how bin laden was a coward and hiding behind a woman but also shooting. it turns out those things were not true. we don't know why that happened. i'm sure they regret it because really the story -- the fact that we do know them now are plenty good enough from their standpoint. it obviously had a tremendously successful ending. not a singlele american was injured. they're going to look back with regret for doing that in that regard. >

john brennan, a former high ranking official of the cia just spent nearly an hour, and about 45 minutes answering reports' questions and providing a wealth of detail. we are scrutinizing all of that information and we are getting a whole lot more coming in not only from the white house, but the pentagon and the state department and the u.s. intelligence community and around the world, and pakistani officials are saying one thing, and afghani officials are saying another thing. let's go to the white house with our correspondent dan lothian, and you were just in the briefing with john brennan, and he is blunt talking, and straight talking guy, and we learned a lot more about this operation. >> we did, wolf. i should point out that i have attended many briefings with him over the past few years on counterintelligence situations, and i have never seen him this animated and certainly not providing this kind of detailed information in public. in fact, during the briefing, i was exchanging e-mails with a senior administration official who said quote, i have never seen a briefing anything like

well it certainly there's questions in the islamic world when somebody like john brennan says we consulted with experts who were they they could have been anybody who would it was an islamic cleric you got to wonder why he said that and and we just see this series of the information that they say one thing and then they have to sort of recant what they said because i guess and i think i think that this administration is not speaking from one song sheet we're hearing different stories and they're changing by the hour literally that many people talk about saddam hussein now as well he was taken alive and it did not much help that why do you think they treated the two cases differently. well certainly there is a you know they are saying they won't release the photos of bin laden but we know we were we had the photos of. saddam hussein's sons which were very gruesome and also a photo of saddam hussein or who was purported piece of saddam hussein after his hanging they don't seem to have any problem with that now if they were if they're so concerned about inflaming tensions in the muslim world

>> i don't have updates on that accept to echo what john brennan said this morning. we made a great deal available to the public in a remarkable period of time. we are talking about the most classified operation this government has undertaken in many years. the information we have provide to you is quite substantial. we'll continue review that and make decisions about the appropriateness about releasing the information as the review continues on. >> the pakistani government said the isi was providing information about the compound since 2009. whereas all we know about in terms of the media is that we have known about the compound. could you explain the discrepancy and also has the isi been providing information about this compound? >> what i will do is points you to the comments john brennan made and others have made which is that the pakistanis have in general, very helpful in many ways in the fight against al qaeda. and that help has -- was assistance in general in the gathering of intelligence and information that led to the successful operation sunday. i'm not aw

in a white house briefing earlier today, john brennan, president obama's chief counterterrorism advisor, provided more details. >> you went into this operation believing that the most likely outcome would be he would be killed on sight? >> we were trying to make sure that we were able to accomplish mission safely and securely for the people who were involved. we were not going to put our people at risk. the president put a premium on making sure our personnel were protected and we wereot going to give bin laden or any of his cohort it is opportunity to carry out lethal fire on our forces. he wasengagednd he was killed in the process but if we had the opportunity to take him alive we would have done that. >> reporter: have you been able to determine how bin laden was able to hide in this relatively prominent location and do u believe the pakistanis when they say they have no idea he was there? >> people refer to this as hiding in plain sight. clearly th was something that was coidered as a possibility. pakistan is a large country. we are looking right now at how he was able to hold out t

this was the gutsiest decision as john brennan said at the time. the president calls up admiral mccraven, he wanted him to know godspeed and he wanted to personally thank him and his soldiers that were going in and he'd be personally following the mission all along. obviously you walked through what happened saturday night. the president goes about his day. so on sunday at 3:30 as they're watching the video come in. it's a 40-minute long raid. lots of tense moments. john brennan said today that every minute passed by as if it was a day at some point, particularly the tense moments of the helicopter that was supposed to hover. two blackhawks brought this team in. one -- they were both supposed to hover. instead one got grounded and had to land. and then they heard one of the soldiers on the ground say geronimo, geronimo, geronimo ekia. what this was a code for, geronimo was the code for they caught -- essentially mission accomplished. they got bin laden. enemy killed in action. that's when the president knew watching this audio and video in realtime

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 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

but it is not the only part, as john brennan and others have said, and the president has said, we are continuing the fight against al qaeda everyday. and the focus of that operation of the u.s. personnel in afghanistan is on al qaeda. the operation continues. the july 2011 transition date for the beginning of a drawdown remains very much in place. the pace of that drawdown will be determined by conditions on the ground. >> final question, any update on the plans -- >> nothing but to echo what john brennan said this morning that we are obviously reviewing information and we have made a great deal revealed to the public in remarkable time, because this is the most highly classified operation that this government has undertaken in a number of years and the amount of information that we have tried to reveal to you is quite substantial, and we will continue to review it and consider the appropriateness of more release of information as the review continues on. >> jay, the pakistani government put out a statement in which they said that the isi had been providing information about the compo

john brennan said today pretty explicitly there was a capture option here. the force that went in did have pretty explicit instructions, capture if possible. if that was not on the table, to neutralize the subject. you're trusting them to make a decision in the hostile environment. they performed brilliantly. >> roger, let me ask you about this special force that came in from jsoc. we're going to talk about it. we have something who was part of that operation, that was part of jsoc before, tell everybody about what that is. do we have a better capability to swoop in with helicopters that we didn't have before, for example, when you worked at the clinton administration? >> no, it's tough to compare the two. joint special operations command is some of our most experienced and trained fighters, but what's important to understand is what phil said, you put together a mosaic of information to paint an intelligence picture. then when you have as high degree as possible in the accuracy of that information, you then task the military operators to come up with a oper

john brennan, the president's top counterterrorism advisor, says it was one of the most anxiety-filled periods of time that anyone in that room had ever experienced. he said the minutes passed like days. and we're told that when it finally became clear to the president that this mission was going to succeed, he announced to the room in a calm voice "we got him." katie? >> couric: chip reid at the white house. chip, thank you. for years, many assumed bin laden was holed up in one of pakistan's remote tribal regions possibly in a cave. but his hiding place was actually just 35 miles from the capital. elizabeth palmer is in islamabad tonight and, liz, what is the official response there to the u.s. raid against bin laden? from here in america it seems very muted. >> reporter: very muted. no response at all from the president's office. in fact, the only... the most complete statement came out of the foreign affairs ministry which said simply that the operation had been carried out by u.s. forces in accordance with u.s. policy and that the killing of osama bin laden demonstrated pakistan's

we heard john brennan the top counterterrorism advisor to the white house talk a little bit about the tensions. you've learned a little bit more about that. >> warner: well, yes, jeff. as he said, the minutes passed like days. every moment was tense but the tenseest moment came when one of the helicopters they had taken in there essentially stalled out. it got on the ground but it stalled out. they needed it to get out. we had a plan-b, he said, but that was still the worst moment. it was the first time they had to go off the perfect script. they did get another helicopter in.ultimately as they blew up the one that was stranded on the ground. the other tense moment was near the end of the operation. they b became aware that the pakistanis were aware something was going on and were scrambling their f-16 fighter jets. interestingly, there were earlier stories today that the u.s. had called the pakistanis and said stand down. it's one of ours. they did not. brennan said they did not notify the pakistanis until they flew out of the air space. he said fortunately we didn't have to engage w

. >> john brennan, on monday, gave one name -- >> okay, i think this has been made clear. this is an important point. the transcript, he gave a name, it is the correct name, unfortunately when the transcript was listened to and put on paper, an error was made in transcribing that name. john brennan's -- i think we've corrected that and what he said was accurate. >> and was any other person dead or alive taken from the compound and transported from the scene by u.s. personnel? >> no. >> and then on tomorrow, is there -- does the president have concern about possibly exploiting 9/11 families? does they want to keep some of this private? >> he's meeting in private with 9/11 families. >> i mean, is there any -- >> in private. >> okay. >> no press. >> okay. what are the public events, then, tomorrow? >> he's going to the world trade center site and laying a wreath in public. that will be -- >> why did he decide to make these meetings all private? >> i think you said so in your question. i mean you suggested why that would be the case. it's about he wants to meet with them and s

that is my question. >> i think it depends on the situation i think john brennan in the white house develops those strategies and resources i think for a long while and iraq thet is military have believe it think that will change with our drawdown. it is very much case specific. but common the other thing i t want to say is wants you goo ou out of washington and into the field , -- come into baghdad or into kabul and then the role of the ambassador becomes critical.c the role becomes that of the ambassador. . . >> it's to delegate this to your chief of station or to your defense establishment. there's going to be no substitute for the ambassador for herself or himself taking the lead op this broad effort that is going to be required. >> well, my follow-up question to that was that i thought there might be an opportunity that if deploam sigh was -- diplomacy was understood to be critical to counter terrorism, this might be a way to make this relevant to the american people, but you mentioned at the end of the importance of developing better stories, i guess, of how it is that we actually use

i have with me today john brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and to counterterrorism, and he will take questions from you about the events of last night and yesterday afternoon and what preceded those events, and then if you have any questions on other subjects, i'll do about ten minutes after mr. brennan is finished to take those questions. i just want to make a point before john comes up that as many of you know that the president, even before he was president, when he was a candidate, has a very clear idea about the approach he would take as president towards osama bin laden. in august of 2007, he said, if we have actionable intelligence about high value terrorist targets and president musharraf won't act, we will. in july of 2008 he said, we must make it clear if pakistan cannot or will not act we will take out high level terrorist targets like bin laden if we have them in our sights. he repeated statements like that again. i want to be clear that this is an approach that he always felt that he would take when he was president and then as john will elaborate once

if you look at john brennan speech last december, if you look at the testimony of the director of national intelligence, direct or of the counterterrorism center, early this year it was clear that aqap had msb surpassed al qaeda. it is an organization that is quite formidable in the sense that it's very adaptable and very creative and they have come up with uses of the internet example, uses those media language surpassing al qaeda in stating that their ambition is described the u.s. homeland and not with their actions in yemen or in saudi arabia. so it is a threat that needs to be addressed. now, and where a lucky is a significant asset. particularly his outreach is expanding the pool of mujahedin fire, fire beyond arabic speakers and also appealing to individuals who can more easily pass underneath our radar. but a lucky is not the leader of aqap. there are homegrown yemenis who are the former leaders in the up durational leaders. we have a tendency sometimes in the popular counterterrorism to latch on one individual who we can identify and know the name and mistake that individual for t

we'll speak to john brennan a little more about that meeting. detail this is morning about the top-secret operation that killed osama bin laden. national correspondent david martin was at the pentagon with the latest on that angle. we're learning that it was in fact a courier that led the u.s. intelligence to this compound as far back as august. but how were they able to track it? >> well, they got his nickname from their interrogation of the al qaeda operatives. and some of these were operatives like khalid sheikh mohammed held in the cia prisons where they were subjected to water boarding. first they got the nickname. then they were able about four years ago to get the real name and sometime after that, they got his cell phone number. they started to track the cell phone. he would turn off the cell phone anytime he got anywhere near the compound. so for some years, they were listening for this cell phone. and it never showed up in any place that would correlate with the compound. and then last summer, he made a mistake. he left the phone on an

meanwhile, the president's top counter-terrorism adviser john brennan decided whether to release photos of bin laden's corpse. >>> we may soon get a peek of the 9/11 memorial set to open in baltimore in time for the 10th anniversary of the attack. wreckage will be incorporated into a memorial that will function as a sun dial using the shadow of baltimore's trade center. it will have the names and birthdates of 63 victims. renderings will be made public in about two weeks. >>> now let's take a look at the roads tonight and see you had that commute is looking. we're looking at 695 and providence road. people got their windows down and enjoying the sun. when will we have to use the wipers? >> i think we're talking about several more hours of fantastic warm may weather. enjoy it. a big cooloff on the way and the possibility of scattered showers and storms. you can see where the action is. it's well off to our west right now. places like garrett county, allegany county and washington county getting storm activity. watching new cells, the heaviest towards newburg, pennsylvania, north of harri

john brennan shedding a lot of light on the president listening to this as it all went down. one of the fears they have they said was they might take fire from the pakistani military. they didn't nope what was going on over there. once they started to hear the gunfire that they might be under fire from our supposed allies in the pakistani military. what is your take on this? >> the pakistani government was thought informed of the raid beforehand or while it was taking place. so all they knew was that something was happening nearby the military academy. it's not surprising they would have scrambled. had it gotten more difficult, whether we would have done anything, i don't know. but that goes to show how little confidence there was that even the top levels of the pakistani government could have been told in advance. it was a huge risk, no doubt about it. martha: what do you make of feeling 100 yard away from this military installation is this huge compound, 8 times bigger than any house around there. walls 12-18 feet high, covered in barbed wire. the pakistani military doesn't

information coming from the administration and coming from john brennan. this is a problem with everybody wanted to ask questions so fast and so thin, and it is very difficult to sort everything out, so he did correct himself, as you know, and we are all subject to that kind of thing. apparently, there was a wife who stood in front of her husband, and i believe the person may well have been the courier i have been talking about, but whether she was forced to do it, or she did voluntarily, i have no idea. >> are you saying that she was married to the courier? the wife of the courier? >> that is my tentative understanding, subject to change. >> do you expect the committee to review the photographs? >> i expect us to ask for that to see that, yes. >> have you seen them? >> no. >> do you know there is a video of the burial? >> i would assume that it has been video and. i do not know that it has been. i think that this is being very carefully considered. i think for purposes of 100% of identification, there is value in doing so, and that would be the only reaso

we have the terry advisers john brennan express those concerns. >> we have, you know, many questions about this and i know pakistanis do as well. investigation is ongoing, they're pursuing their leads in this investigation. i think they are trying to determine themselves, whether or not there were individuals within the pakistani government, military and intelligence services who were knowledgeable about bin laden's residence there and whether or not they were providing support. but at this time what we're doing is pursuing the leads and engaging the pakistanis and its too early to tell what type of support system he has. have you seen anything yet inside the pack government. >> the information is going and we're going to look at it very carefully for threat reporting, plotting might be under way, leads to other al-qaeda officis. >> charlie: pakistan has defended its role. it was written in an up he had in "the washington post" that our country has as much reason to hate al-qaeda asnyther nation. he's ambassador of the united states, i am pleased to have him back on this program. wel

what we heard from the homeland and international terrorism adviser at the white house, john brennan, in the last hour or so, is any indication. they're always trying to determine whether anything they reveal, any facts, even a picture of the deceased terrorist osama bin laden, will reveal any sort of operational detail, whether it would be compromised when they go after any future bad guys. dylan, you mentioned at the end of that report there, your open, the poignant scene, jubilant scene outside the white house fence here. especially poignant when you consider it was this very location on september 11th, you mentioned the people in the world trade center. the heroes of flight 93 probably saved the lives of hundreds of people, the people who perished in the field in pennsylvania, saved the lives of hundreds of people in the white house or perhaps in the capitol dome. those folks will never been forgotten as will the people in the pentagon and the plane that crashed into that edifice there, only to be repaired later. a fascinating briefing by john brennan who explicitly said it's very

i think for yemen, i think john brennan in the white house has the lead role in developing both strategy and resources. i think for a long while in iraq, the military had the lead. i think that's going to change with our drawdown there. so it is very much case-specific. but i think in terms of explaining -- oh, the other thing i wanted to say was. once you go out of washington and into the field, into baghdad, into kabul, into riyadh, then i think the role of the ambassador becomes critical. and the essential role becomes that of the ambassador. and we know that the ambassador is not necessarily someone from the state department. again, the president decides how he is going to be represented. but oftentimes, it is a state department professional. and then if you're in a situation like yemen or where there's a terrorism threat, you better get pretty smart on the issue. you better get pretty smart about al-qaeda or the other terrorism organizations because one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to delegate this to your chief of station or to your defense establishment. there's going t

>> oh, i think the white house and john brennan. the administration yesterday tried to put it on to the newsroom or the news people at the white house, and of course, that level of information is only going to be given to the news people if it's approved by the president and his terrorism advisers. so that's where it's coming from. >> where'd they cross the line, in your view? where did they go from information that needs to be put out -- bin laden is dead, here's the raid, here's how it went down, to the specificity of a level of -- >> no one needed to know about the stealth helicopters. certainly no one needed to know about the cia observation post in abbottabad. we have described in detail all of the communication systems that bin laden was using to communicate with his organization. we've compromised those. al qaeda was already going to change them, but now they can be sure they know which ones they need to change. the one thing we haven't seen is any leaking about monetary, about financial raising. which suggests to me that the

this is john brennan. then we'll talk on the other side. >> i think it's inconceivable that bin laden did not have a support system in the country that allowed him to remain there for an expended period of time. >> paul, do you agree? >> absolutely. and i was on the phone yesterday to the former head of german intelligence, someone intimately involved in the hunt for bin laden. he told me that he thought it was almost impossible for the isi not to have known where bin laden was given that where he was killed in this $1 million compound where he was killed. so there are a lot of questions being asked of the pakistanis right now. so far publicly the obama administration has not criticized them for this but there are a lot of questions, nonetheless, being asked, brooke. >> paul, help us understand, for so many people not familiar with the isi, how sophisticated are they? >>. >> they are a very powerful intelligent population. they have lots and lots of agents working for them. for that reason, the western int

. >>> let's put the questions to the counterterrorism adviser, john brennan, who was in the situation room with the prident. thanks for getting up early, sir. let's start with the terror threat here at home. in the hours since osama bin laden has been killed, have you detected any increase in terror chatter? or seen any credible threats pop up? >> we have not seen specific threats at this time. but we're taking all of the prudent measures that we need to when there's an incident of significance like this. we're working closely be w the department of homeland security and others, so we understand what the measures are and what threats may be out there. right now, we feel confident that we are at the right posture. >> that's good news. and jake tapper reported a few minutes ago, that the white house could release as early today as photo of osama bin laden? >> we're looking at releasing additional information. details about the raid, as well as other types of material. we want to understand what the possible reaction might be to releasing this information. we're looking at that. >> the n

this is a white house counter terrorism adviser, john brennan, on monday. let's listen to what he had to say. >> there was a female who was, in fact, in the line of fire, that reportedly was used as a shield to shield bin laden from the incoming fire. >> that information isn't quite right, is it, barbara? >> well, you know, carol are the white house, the pentagon, they have the obama administration saying they had to change what they did initially brief. they say it was the fog of war, that the initial reports were not as accurate. once a little time went by, they were able to debrief people more. they were trying to get the information to the people as fast as they could. on the question of this woman, now that they have more information, is that the woman in the room with bin laden, one of his weives, rushed against te u.s. teams. they shot her in the leg. she survived. another woman downstairs earlier had been killed in cross fire. that's their latest information on that point, carol. >> barbara, the next inconsistency is about whether osama bin laden wa