CBS
When President Barack Obama ordered the May 1 raid on a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, he faced divided opinion from his national security advisers over whether it was the right move. “At the end of the day, this was still a 55-45 situation,” Obama told CBS’s 60 Minutes in his first broadcast interview since bin Laden’s death. “I mean, we could not say definitively that bin Laden was there. Had he not been there, then there would have been some significant consequences.” Obama said he was worried that since there were no confirmed sightings of bin Laden, they could have been raiding the home of some “prince from Dubai,” but ultimately concluded the risk was worth it. “I said to myself that if we have a good chance of not completely defeating but badly disabling al Qaeda, then it was worth both the political risks as well as the risks to our men, after a pursuit that cost billions of dollars and stretched for nearly a decade,” said Obama. The president also revealed that most of his senior aides didn’t know about the raid, and acknowledged “some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan.”