Transcript
Lindsey Graham (0:00)
There are more ways than ever to listen to History Daily ad free. Listen with Wondry plus in the Wondery app as a member of Noiser plus at noiser.com or in Apple Podcasts. Or you can get all of History Daily plus other fantastic history podcasts@intohristory.com It's 11:15pm on May 1, 2011, in the airspace above Pakistan. On board a heavily modified Black Hawk helicopter, US Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette grips his assault rifle and glances through the window at the countryside hurtling pass below. Matt is one of a dozen highly trained and heavily armed Navy Seals squeezed onto the helicopter. Another 12 men are on board, a second Black Hawk flying through the darkness next to them in close formation. Matt has been a Navy Seal for 12 years. He served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, but this is his most important mission yet. It's so that it's a secret even from the Pakistani government. The two helicopters are flying fast and low to avoid radar detection. That makes for a bumpy ride though, and Matt holds on tight to his safety harness as the helicopter shudders. The pilot calls out that there's one minute to target and Matt feels a spike of adrenaline surge through it. He connects his special fast descent rope to the helicopter's iron T bar. The plan is for the helicopter to hover over the target, which is a compound surrounded by a 12 foot high concrete wall. Then the SE rappel out of the helicopter into the courtyard and storm the building. Matt and his fellow SEALs have trained for this for months, using almost exact replica of the compound, but there was a flaw in their planning and it's about to jeopardize the entire mission. As the helicopter moves into position over the target, it suffers a sudden loss of lift. Matt's stomach lurches in his throat as the helicopter drops sharply. The pilot fights to regain control, but the helicopter is losing altitude fast. Matt braces as the helicopter plunges downward. Its tail rotor clips the compound wall and the aircraft tips onto its side. The pilot knows he cannot keep the helicopter in the air now, so he executes a controlled crash, putting the helicopter nose first into the dirt. The pilot's quick thinking saves lives. Matt and the seals are jostled when unharmed. But as Matt gets to his feet, he's frustrated. The mission has only just started and already something has gone wrong. The SEALs have lost the element of surprise, but Matt draws on his years of training and quickly refocuses. He and the other men still have a job to do. The Black Hawk helicopter crash will be investigated after this mission and it will be determined that the chain link fences surrounding the replica training compound allowed for the air displaced by the helicopters to blow away freely. But during the raid, the solid concrete walls of the real compound created an updraft that destabilized Matt Bissonnet's helicopter. It was an inauspicious beginning to one of the most important covert missions ever mounted by the CIA, the operation to kill Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011. History Daily is sponsored by Express Pros. Managing your workforce can be exhausting, and if you're tired of a costly and lengthy hiring process, simplify and speed up your recruitment. With one connection, the experts at Express Employment Professionals reduce time to hire, cut down on interviews and lower your recruitment costs. Visit ExpressPros.com today. Express is more efficient than hiring on your own. Check out ExpressPros.com to see how Express employment professionals can take care of your hiring. History Daily is sponsored by Strangers in Time, the new epic novel from one New York Times bestselling author, David Baldacci. In 1944 London, three complete strangers must work together to survive World War II. But will they be able to escape their own dark secrets? Kate Quinn calls Strangers in Oliver Twist Meets the Blitz a beautiful read, and Lisa Scottellini says it's a masterpiece of a historical thriller. Strangers in Time is available in bookstores now. From Noiser and Airship I'm Lindsey Graham and this is History Daily. History is made every day on this podcast. Every day we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world. Today is May 2, 2011. Osama bin Laden is killed by U.S. navy SEALs foreign 29pm in Washington, D.C. on September 11, 2001, 10 years before the killing of Osama bin Laden, the hot TV lights shine down brightly on President George W. Bush. He's been chief executive for just nine months, and his head and heart are swimming with outrage and grief. But in under a minute, he will deliver one of the most important speeches of his life. And he must remain calm and project an aura of strength in order to lead a nation that has spent the day in shock. Only 12 hours ago, two hijacked passenger planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade center, causing them to collapse. Two other planes were also hijacked, one flown into the pentagon in Washington, D.C. and the other crashed in rural Pennsylvania after passengers fought back against their hijackers. Nearly 3,000 people have died in the most horrific terrorist attack in America's history. And at 8:30pm that same day in the Oval Office. The light on the television camera glows red. The teleprompter begins to spool out a hastily written speech. And President Bush does his best to reassure a worried nation. The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I've directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. After his speech, Bush meets privately with top CIA officials. They report to him that the attacks were carried out by the militant group Al Qaeda led by the terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden. Before today that name was not widely known outside the intelligence community. But now he is public enemy number one. 44 year old Saudi Arabian Osama Bin Laden is an extremist Islamic fundamentalist. For years he and Al Qaeda have been executing small scale targeted attacks across the globe. Eight years prior, in 1993, an Al Qaeda terrorist detonated a bomb beneath the World Trade center, killing six people and injuring many, many more. But Bin Laden considered this a failure as it did not destroy the building. So he continued his war against America. And now, eight years later, Bin Laden has finally succeeded in bringing down the World Trade Center. In the days following 9 11, the CIA and the FBI start an international manhunt. Bin Laden's sanctuary is in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan where the equally fundamentalist Taliban rule. The Taliban refused to extradite Bin Laden to America, so the US and its NATO allies invade. During the final stages of the invasion, a small team of US forces almost captures Bin Laden at the Battle of Tora Bora. But he manages to escape into neighboring Pakistan and disappears. For frustrated Americans, it feels like justice for the 911 attacks may never come. But the CIA continues to search for Bin Laden for years. Its agents round up and imprison dozens of suspects, but they don't get any meaningful leads, even after their use of controversial enhanced interrogation techniques more commonly known as torture. So American officials are left to guess. Many believe Bin Laden is hiding in an unknown cave in the wilderness somewhere. Others come to think he's already dead. But the CIA counterterrorism unit keeps looking for their number one fugitive. And in 2010 they make a breakthrough. A detainee reveals the name of a courier supposedly taking messages to and from Bin Laden. That courier's cell phone is traced and he is secretly tracked through Pakistan until he stops at a large house in the northern city of Abbottabad. Using spy satellites, CIA operatives quickly note that this is not just any house. It's more like a fortress. The thick walled buildings have reinforced steel doors and very few Windows. The entire compound is surrounded by a 12 foot high concrete wall topped with barbed wire. What can be seen of the residents inside is suspicious as well. Unlike their neighbors, those living in the compound carefully burn all their trash. Still, these high security measures aren't proof that Bin Laden is there. And the new American President, Barack Obama won't sanction a covert attack in another country without assurance the intelligence is correct. So before anything else can be done, the CIA must somehow confirm that this house belongs to Bin Laden. Because his sister died in an American hospital a year ago, the CIA has access to Bin Laden's DNA profile. If they can find matching DNA at this house in Pakistan, that would be confirmation enough. So the CIA comes up with a a child vaccination program. Agents know there are several children living in the compound. The suspicion is that some of them are Bin Laden's children. The CIA hopes that these children will get a shot as part of the vaccination drive. And the needles used will then test positive for Bin Laden's DNA. But the ruse doesn't work. The children in the compound are not allowed to get vaccinated. So without this confirmation, CIA experts tell President Obama it's only a 5050 shot that bin Laden is in the house. So in the end, it comes down to a hunch and a gut decision. On April 29, 2011, President Obama will tell his military chiefs that the mission is a go. And just 72 hours later, two dozen Navy SEALs will embark on a dangerous effort to finally get justice for the victims of 911 and kill Osama Bin Laden. History Daily is sponsored by atRuby. Lately you may have been hearing about a serious but rare heart condition called attr, Cardiac Amyloidosis or attrcm. Because symptoms can be similar to other heart conditions, it may take time to be diagnosed. But learning more about ATTRCM and a treatment called a truby, also called Acharamatis, could be important for you or a loved one. A truby is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with ATTRCM to reduce death and hospitalization due to heart issues. In one study, people taking a truby saw an impact on their health related quality of life and 50% fewer hospitalizations due to heart issues than people who didn't take a truby, giving you more chances to do what you love with who you love. 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