You've probably never heard of Marty Martin. He spent most of his life as an anonymous CIA operative. But he very recently came out of the closet as the man Bush put in charge of finding Osama bin Laden in the aftermath of 9/11, and guess what? It turns out the man Bush put in charge of finding bin Laden is an extremely shady and allegedly corrupt war profiteer. Who would have thought? 
 
 Martin, of course, never succeeded in catching bin Laden. He ran the CIA's bin Laden unit from 2002 to 2004, a fact that we now know only because he emerged to grab some credit for bin Laden's death and celebrate the agency's discontinued torture program: "We got beat up for it, but those efforts led to this great day," he told the Associated Press three weeks ago. Prior to that, he was just a nondescript former agency official who went into the security consulting business after retiring. The closest hint to just how key an official he was came from references to a "Marty M."—described as a sort of Jack Bauer of the bayou—in former CIA director George Tenet's memoir. 
 
 Now that we know who Martin really is, we can get a sense of what kind of guy Bush turned to for arguably the most crucial job in the war on terror. 
 
 1. The Kind of Guy Who Bilks Taxpayers for His Own Enrichment 
 
 In 2007, after leaving the CIA, Martin joined International Oil Trading Company, a Florida company that delivered fuel to U.S. forces in the Middle East. In 2008, congressional investigators accused it of ripping off the Pentagon to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. This year, the Pentagon's own audit found that the company overcharged the government by as much as $204 million on a series of massive Iraq war fuel contracts. 
 
 2. The Kind of Guy Who Bribes Foreign Officials 
 
 According to a Florida lawsuit against International Oil's owner Harry Sargeant III, Martin paid a $9 million bribe to the head of the Jordanian intelligence service back in 2007 to secure his company's exclusive rights to ship fuel across Jordan to U.S bases in Iraq. (That allegation comes from the Jordanian king's brother-in-law, Mohammad al-Saleh, who is suing Sargeant for purportedly screwing him out of a $100 million stake in the company.) 
 
 3. The Kind of Guy Who Helps Launder Illegal Political Contributions 
 
 In 2008, the Washington Post reported that Sargeant, a billionaire, raised funds for John McCain's presidential campaign with help from an unnamed "former head of the bin Laden unit" who worked for him. The men reportedly skirted campaign finance laws by funneling the money through Arab-American "straw donors." McCain quickly returned $50,000 of Sargeant's lucre. The Post never named the ex-chief of the CIA bin Laden unit involved in the fundraising, but unless two former heads of the bin Laden unit were working for Sargeant at the time, that man was Marty Martin. 
 
 4. The Kind of Guy Who Gets Totally Psyched When People Die In a War He Profits From 
 
 In a court filing last week, attorneys for al-Saleh quoted from an e-mail that Martin wrote to Sargeant in 2008 in which he appeared to gloat over the escalation of violence in Iraq: 
 
 Fyi, word of a 're-surge' is floating around amidst shit hitting the fan in Iraq today. ☺ 
 
 The "shit hitting the fan" was the Battle of Basra, the Iraqi Army's attempt in March 2008 to finally roll up militias loyal to Moqtada al Sadr. It was widely seen as a debacle and victory for al-Sadr, and many feared the conflict threatened to reignite the civil war. That month, 40 Americans died in Iraq. ☺! 
 
 In other words, he's a former CIA agent. Anyway, that's Marty Martin, the guy Bush put in charge of the bin Laden hunt. Glad it worked out for him. 
 
 Harry Sargeant's lawyers couldn't be reached for comment on this story. The CIA declined to comment. And Marty Martin's bin Laden-hunting predecessor, Michael Scheuer –- who served for two years as a special adviser to Martin's unit –- claims to have never heard of Marty Martin (which we can only presume is a CIA first-rule-of-Fight-Club omerta thing). Reached on his phone, Martin said: "No no, man. I don't want to talk to you, man," and hung up before we had a chance to ask a question. 
 
 [Image via AP] ||||| WASHINGTON -- When one of Osama bin Laden's most trusted aides picked up the phone last year, he unknowingly led U.S. pursuers to the doorstep of his boss, the world's most wanted terrorist. 
 
 That phone call, recounted Monday by a U.S. official, ended a years-long search for bin Laden's personal courier, the key break in a worldwide manhunt. The courier, in turn, led U.S. intelligence to a walled compound in northeast Pakistan, where a team of Navy SEALs shot bin Laden to death. 
 
 The violent final minutes were the culmination of years of intelligence work. Inside the CIA team hunting bin Laden, it always was clear that bin Laden's vulnerability was his couriers. He was too smart to let al-Qaida foot soldiers, or even his senior commanders, know his hideout. But if he wanted to get his messages out, somebody had to carry them, someone bin Laden trusted with his life. 
 
 In a secret CIA prison in Eastern Europe years ago, al-Qaida's No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, gave authorities the nicknames of several of bin Laden's couriers, four former U.S. intelligence officials said. Those names were among thousands of leads the CIA was pursuing. 
 
 One man became a particular interest for the agency when another detainee, Abu Faraj al-Libi, told interrogators that when he was promoted to succeed Mohammed as al-Qaida's operational leader he received the word through a courier. Only bin Laden would have given al-Libi that promotion, CIA officials believed. 
 
 If they could find that courier, they'd find bin Laden. 
 
 The revelation that intelligence gleaned from the CIA's so-called black sites helped kill bin Laden was seen as vindication for many intelligence officials who have been repeatedly investigated and criticized for their involvement in a program that involved the harshest interrogation methods in U.S. history. 
 
 "We got beat up for it, but those efforts led to this great day," said Marty Martin, a retired CIA officer who for years led the hunt for bin Laden. 
 
 Mohammed did not reveal the names while being subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, former officials said. He identified them many months later under standard interrogation, they said, leaving it once again up for debate as to whether the harsh technique was a valuable tool or an unnecessarily violent tactic. 
 
 It took years of work for intelligence agencies to identify the courier's real name, which officials are not disclosing. When they did identify him, he was nowhere to be found. The CIA's sources didn't know where he was hiding. Bin Laden was famously insistent that no phones or computers be used near him, so the eavesdroppers at the National Security Agency kept coming up cold. 
 
 Then in the middle of last year, the courier had a telephone conversation with someone who was being monitored by U.S. intelligence, according to an American official, who like others interviewed for this story spoke only on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive operation. The courier was located somewhere away from bin Laden's hideout when he had the discussion, but it was enough to help intelligence officials locate and watch him. 
 
 In August 2010, the courier unknowingly led authorities to a compound in the northeast Pakistani town of Abbottabad, where al-Libi had once lived. The walls surrounding the property were as high as 18 feet and topped with barbed wire. Intelligence officials had known about the house for years, but they always suspected that bin Laden would be surrounded by heavily armed security guards. Nobody patrolled the compound in Abbottabad. 
 
 In fact, nobody came or went. And no telephone or Internet lines ran from the compound. The CIA soon believed that bin Laden was hiding in plain sight, in a hideout especially built to go unnoticed. But since bin Laden never traveled and nobody could get onto the compound without passing through two security gates, there was no way to be sure. 
 
 Despite that uncertainty, intelligence officials realized this could represent the best chance ever to get to bin Laden. They decided not to share the information with anyone, including staunch counterterrorism allies such as Britain, Canada and Australia. 
 
 By mid-February, the officials were convinced a "high-value target" was hiding in the compound. President Barack Obama wanted to take action. 
 
 "They were confident and their confidence was growing: 'This is different. This intelligence case is different. What we see in this compound is different than anything we've ever seen before,'" John Brennan, the president's top counterterrorism adviser, said Monday. "I was confident that we had the basis to take action." 
 
 Options were limited. The compound was in a residential neighborhood in a sovereign country. If Obama ordered an airstrike and bin Laden was not in the compound, it would be a huge diplomatic problem. Even if Obama was right, obliterating the compound might make it nearly impossible to confirm bin Laden's death. 
 
 Said Brennan: "The president had to evaluate the strength of that information, and then made what I believe was one of the most gutsiest calls of any president in recent memory." 
 
 Obama tapped two dozen members of the Navy's elite SEAL Team Six to carry out a raid with surgical accuracy. 
 
 Before dawn Monday morning, a pair of helicopters left Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. The choppers entered Pakistani airspace using sophisticated technology intended to evade that country's radar systems, a U.S. official said. 
 
 Officially, it was a kill-or-capture mission, since the U.S. doesn't kill unarmed people trying to surrender. But it was clear from the beginning that whoever was behind those walls had no intention of surrendering, two U.S. officials said. 
 
 The helicopters lowered into the compound, dropping the SEALs behind the walls. No shots were fired, but shortly after the team hit the ground, one of the helicopters came crashing down and rolled onto its side for reasons the government has yet to explain. None of the SEALs was injured, however, and the mission continued uninterrupted. 
 
 With the CIA and White House monitoring the situation in real time – presumably by live satellite feed or video carried by the SEALs – the team stormed the compound. 
 
 Thanks to sophisticated satellite monitoring, U.S. forces knew they'd likely find bin Laden's family on the second and third floors of one of the buildings on the property, officials said. The SEALs secured the rest of the property first, then proceeded to the room where bin Laden was hiding. In the ensuing firefight, Brennan said, bin Laden used a woman as a human shield. 
 
 The SEALs killed bin Laden with a bullet to the head. Using the call sign for his visual identification, one of the soldiers communicated that "Geronimo" had been killed in action, according to a U.S. official. 
 
 Bin Laden's body was immediately identifiable, but the U.S. also conducted DNA testing that identified him with near 100 percent certainty, senior administration officials said. Photo analysis by the CIA, confirmation on site by a woman believed to be bin Laden's wife, and matching physical features such as bin Laden's height all helped confirm the identification. At the White House, there was no doubt. 
 
 "I think the accomplishment that very brave personnel from the United States government were able to realize yesterday is a defining moment in the war against al-Qaida, the war on terrorism, by decapitating the head of the snake known as al-Qaida," Brennan said. 
 
 U.S. forces searched the compound and flew away with documents, hard drives and DVDs that could provide valuable intelligence about al-Qaida, a U.S. official said. The entire operation took about 40 minutes, officials said. 
 
 Bin Laden's body was flown to the USS Carl Vinson in the North Arabian sea, a senior defense official said. There, aboard a U.S. warship, officials conducted a traditional Islamic burial ritual. Bin Laden's body was washed and placed in a white sheet. He was placed in a weighted bag that, after religious remarks by a military officer, was slipped into the sea about 2 a.m. EDT Monday. 
 
 Said the president: "I think we can all agree this is a good day for America." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writers Kimberly Dozier, Eileen Sullivan and Ben Feller in Washington and Kathy Gannon in Islamabad, Pakistan contributed to this report. ||||| 30 July 2011. The cat-fight between FoxNews and Gawker appears to be yet another screech in the Obama-CIA's continuing campaign to loudmouth its Bin Laden kill operation of which the orchestrated outing of CIA John is a part. That FoxNews invited Michael Scheuer, the disgraced-and-fired ex-head of the Alec Station-OBL hunting team, to discuss the outing a member of that very same team, indicates that every CIA sly promotional venture is a gloss on the sordid practice of prolonging very drawn-out operations to keep funding flowing generously, Scheuer now a paid shill to do just that. The same practice was at work in the recently completed Aspen Security Conference where the rewards of keeping terrorism media-hot was speechified at length by the prime beneficiaries of the depthless money pit -- national security threat mongerers and the media avidly promoting one another by appearing to differ, the New York Times a funder of the Aspen genteel differences of opinion amongst club members. FoxNews and Gawker gutter-trash-for-ads differs from the CIA and NYT global affairs pretense only in transparency of camouflage. 13 July 2011: Two photos below from The New York Observer, Issue dated July 18, 2011, p. 20. These photos are not published in the online article. School of the uniform invited: cryptome[at]earthlink.net 12 July 2011. CIA John further disclosed: http://www.observer.com/2011/07/exclusive-bin-laden-hunter-cia-john-identified/?show=all 
 
 The Man in the Yellow Tie, with Clinton and Panetta, and in a college yearbook photo. 12 July 2011. In response to an inquiry: Washington Post today publishes another CIA chapter in the valorization of CIA John, supposedly in response to the Cryptome sniffing, but most likely a sign of appreciation for our taking the bait to promote a designated hero. It glosses the previous AP report by slathering on more motherhood-and-apple-pie "risk to undercover officer," and suggests that ranks of reputable publishers will obediently play the access hand they are given or be banned for revealing the officer's identity. Even threatened with prosecution in the jounralism-hiding-behind-Wikileaks gambit. Nothing about the female star which may mean that will be a separate series of disclosures as the re-election campaign unfolds. A call to the CIA press office might get you a quotable sip from the spigot, and get you placed on a watch list for possible enlistment as a favored outlet. If unusually creatively done you will be invited to interview CIA John and, best of all, the Diana huntress who is pissed that the guy is getting the credit for her deftly brilliant tracking. https://www.cia.gov/contact-cia/index.html If unusually creative at stroking you will be invited to interview CIA John and, best of all, the Diana huntress who is pissed that the stud is getting the credit for her deftly brilliant tracking. If the press PR office plays hard to get see the link to the Entertainment Industry Liasion. And if CIA-celebrity outreach is slow to respond report as threats White House photographer Pete Souza; AP's Adam Goldman, Matt Apuzzo and the unknown photographer of Panetta's visit to Congress; Gawker's John Cook and the Multiple Does who have spread the outing of Galahad online: https://www.cia.gov/contact-cia/report-threats.html 10 July 2011. In response to an inquiry: Cryptome prepared the CIA-John file about 4:00PM on July 5, 2011, uploaded it and the first download took place at 4:11PM. Our copy of the AP story states it was updated at 1:45AM, July 5, 2011. We don't recall exactly when we saw the AP story, but it would have been after 7AM on the 5th when we started reading online news about bin Laden (a topic we are following to track the PR spin). Then it took a couple of hours to look for photos of the days cited in the AP story and package a file (note we package, do not write). We first thought it was some other person with Panetta at the Senate hearing, an older gent just behind Panetta. Unsure about the identification we went back to the photos to look for the older gent. Then we spotted the tie and noticed the unusual height of the person wearing it. Then again went back to the photos and saw John the Tall wearing the tie in one of them as well as lurking behind in the Senate photo. (There are two versions of the latter photo, almost identical.) Artful cropping by the White House to include John's arm and tie -- and height -- provided perfect clues for dummies to go with the AP dummy-baiting. Fortunately, White House Flickr photos are high-resolution or it would have been difficult to see the tie clearly, and more importantly, to see John in the background in the low-resolution photos customarily appearing in the media. The public may not know that AP and others distribute high-resolution photos to paying customers, and the low-res versions are reduced to hold down costs of publishing. AP offers the Senate photos of Panetta and John at high-resolution at a cost of $200 for a single day's internet use. We did not buy one. Others are free from the White House. Nada from the CIA black hole except to very high-paying customers and syncophants. We assume that by now John and the bin Laden hunt team have been awarded medals. That is likely to have taken place when Obama went to CIA on May 20, 2011, to thank the covert operators in private and the CIA employees in public, the last heavily documented by the press. The next CIA person to be outed on the OBL-hunt team is the woman who worked with John, who made the actual call of a targeted lead to OBL, and, best, AP slyly reports, a journalism graduate! What better story could there be for a spying industry as badly in need of favorable PR for valiant and dogged investigators as official spies. We bet there are a slew of journalists working that clue, and being fed more tidbits and perhaps exclusive briefings by the woman under guidance of CIA PR wizards. If she looks like Valerie Plame we will have most winning couple. Who will get his and her names first, TMZ or you? To sanitize the source send names to Cryptome for washing. 9 July 2011. See also the Situation Room's live kill feed: http://cryptome.org/0004/kill-sitroom/kill-sitroom.htm 8 July 2011. A relevant Associated Press biographical detail about CIA John's identifying height: "In college, he walked on to a Division I basketball team and hustled his way into a rotation full of scholarship players." And, a CIA official on Alec Station: http://cryptome.org/0004/cia-alec-station.pdf (1.2MB) Cryptome: There is little risk to CIA John in suggesting his identity. Spies do not appear in photos unless intentionally, albeit in usually discreet form (every spy spinner rises from the shadows deliberately, maintaining the allure of darkness). The White House photo where CIA John is in the background appears staged to locate him directly behind Panetta and showing the back of Obama's head. The White House photographer seldom shows Obama in this manner, camera held above Obama (Pete Souza is several inches shorter) to aim at Panetta and his prime briefer of the day. Most likely is that Obama, or his media advisors and the CIA, directed the photo shoot and its publication on Flickr as part of a campaign to vaunt the CIA operation and prepare its media-perfect, tall, handsome, athletic, stolid, dogged, quiet-man dragon-slayer for coming out of the cold for a future public role. Moreover, Obama has emphasized publicity for the CIA and DoD for the OBL assassination, with heavily-media covered visits to the CIA where dozens of CIA employees were photographed and videotaped. The White House offers a video of a visit on May 20, 2011 to thank CIA employees for the OBL operation. Cryptome offers photographs of that visit and another on April 20, 2009. The two AP reporters who wrote the article about CIA John work the CIA beat, and will no doubt continue their OBL series in cooperation with the CIA -- the agency carefully cultivates such beat reporters with significant disclosures once it is shown the reports will be favorable. It is no secret that there are a bevy of such reporters, writers, media producers, lecturers, consultants and spy-industry friends who capitalize on their privileged access (most pretending to be distant from their bedfellows). 6 July 2011. Cryptome responds to Shepherd Johnson's pointing to the CIA's Alec Station operation to find Bin Laden (housed in the Gloucester building, Tysons Corner): CIA John was at Alec Station for many years, maybe for all its existence. Then after Alec Station was allegedly dissolved in 2006, he probably moved to the CTC and on to the NCTC, chasing OBL with a bevy of cohorts. There may still be a hidden remnant of Alex Station at Gloucester (or the nearby Stafford building) -- the CIA never fully joins with the other natsec players, just pretends to do so, keeping its hardcore CTC going in contempt of PR-driven NCTC. John is going to get a career boost, maybe come out of undercover. That seems to be what Panetta was doing by promoting him to Obama and then the showboating at Congress knowing the photos would be taken and eventually leaked -- as with the AP story filled with easy to follow clues (AP was told or knew what was in the photos of John in the background). A series of privileged media disclosures is how OBL's killing is going to be promoted by the CIA for many years, with John and Alec Station cohorts moving up the chain of perks and eventually hitting the lecture and literature circuit, first for CIA's never-ending PR and budgetary outreach, then after retirement for hard cash and pension supplements like the crowd of CT natsec gangsters at the Aspen Security Forum. 5 July 2011 CIA John Who Hunted Osama bin Laden Photos The man who hunted Osama bin Laden ADAM GOLDMAN, Associated Press, MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Updated 01:15 a.m., Tuesday, July 5, 2011 [Excerpts] WASHINGTON (AP)  After Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden, the White House released a photo of President Barack Obama and his Cabinet inside the Situation Room, watching the daring raid unfold. Hidden from view, standing just outside the frame of that now-famous photograph was a career CIA analyst. In the hunt for the world's most-wanted terrorist, there may have been no one more important. His job for nearly a decade was finding the al-Qaida leader. [Note the tie pattern of the unusually tall man behind Gates off the photo at right. This photo is taken in a secure conference room in the Situation Room complex. (As an aside, the brigadier general running the show from a laptop, rather than a low-ranked technician from remote console, is highly unusual, and probably indicates the high-level security measures protecting the bin Laden operation. This is also suggested by holding the show in a small conference room rather than the commodious large confedrence room frequently shown in public photographs.)] President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House, May 1, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) [Note the unusually tall man at rear with tie pattern which matches the photo above. This photo is taken in the large conference room of the Situation Room complex.] President Barack Obama talks with members of the national security team at the conclusion of one in a series of meetings discussing the mission against Osama bin Laden, in the Situation Room of the White House, May 1, 2011. Gen. James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is seen on the screen. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) [Continuing the AP story] The Associated Press has agreed to the CIA's request not to publish his full name and withhold certain biographical details so that he would not become a target for retribution. Call him John, his middle name. ... Two days after bin Laden's death, John accompanied Panetta to Capitol Hill. The Senate Intelligence Committee wanted a full briefing on the successful mission. At one point in the private session, Panetta turned to the man whose counterterrorism resume spanned four CIA directors. [Note unusually tall man at upper left with a tie not unlike the previous.] In this May 3, 2011 file photo, CIA Director Leon Panetta, right, leaves after briefing members of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington. Alex Brandon, AP Associated Press photo offerings. Screen shots downloaded 13 July 2011. The headline and caption for the top image have been updated from the original at bottom. Source Associated Press photo offering of Panetta and John Source ||||| By Jessica Hopper, Subrata De and Tim Uehlinger 
 
 Rock Center 
 
 President Barack Obama describes the killing of Osama bin Laden as the “most important single day” of his presidency and said that the decision to carry out the raid was one that he had to ultimately make alone. 
 
 “I did choose the risk,” the president said in an exclusive interview with Rock Center Anchor and Managing Editor Brian Williams. “The reason I was willing to make that decision of sending in our SEALs to try to capture or kill bin Laden rather than to take some other options was ultimately because I had 100 percent faith in the Navy SEALs themselves.” 
 
 A year after the May 1, 2011, raid on bin Laden’s compound, Obama and several of the advisers who helped plan the operation, known as “Operation Neptune’s Spear,” spoke exclusively to NBC News, reflecting on the tense months spent planning and debating the feasibility of this daring raid. The interviews occurred before the president made an unannounced visit to Kabul on Tuesday, where he and President Hamid Karzai signed an agreement on the future of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. 
 
 “This had to be such a close-held operation,” the president said. “There were only a handful of staff in the White House who knew about this.” 
 
 The president did not share news of the mission’s launch with his staff, or with the first lady. 
 
 “Even a breath of this in the press could have chased bin Laden away,” Obama said. “We didn't know at that point whether there might be underground tunnels coming out of that compound that would allow him to escape.” 
 
 The killing of the 9/11 mastermind had been years in the making, a mission that Obama’s two predecessors had been unable accomplish. President Bill Clinton fired 75 cruise missiles trying to kill bin Laden while President George W. Bush was frustrated by the al-Qaeda leader’s ability to evade capture. 
 
 The lead 
 
 After years of hunting bin Laden, the Central Intelligence Agency got its biggest break in late 2010. 
 
 Helmed by then CIA Director Leon Panetta, the agency identified the home of bin Laden’s courier in the upscale town of Abbottabad, not far from Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. Satellites revealed someone else living at the same compound: a tall man walking in the courtyard that analysts dubbed “The Pacer.” 
 
 “Ultimately it was a 50/50 proposition as to whether this was actually bin Laden,” Obama said. 
 
 He and his advisers, including Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, hammered out the possibilities. 
 
 Clinton said that she was brought into the process in January 2011 when a series of intensive meetings began in the White House Situation Room, or “Sit Room.” 
 
 In March of 2011, the president ordered Admiral William McRaven, then commander of Joint Special Operations, to outline a possible raid on the suspected bin Laden compound. 
 
 “I remember the moment in the Sit Room with General McRaven,” Clinton said, “and, you know, someone said, ‘Well, this sounds really dangerous and we’re going to expose our guys and what do we know is going to happen?’ And he said, ‘Well, with all due respect, we’ve done this hundreds of times.’” 
 
 In fact, the night bin Laden was killed, Special Forces carried out several other missions in the region. 
 
 “What may not be known is in addition to this operation that night, this specific one, there were multiple operations just like this going on in Afghanistan,” said retired Admiral Mike Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Some of them actually more difficult than the one that got bin Laden. And when I say more difficult, I don't think higher strategic risk, certainly not more important, but physically more difficult, more dangerous than the one that our great Special Forces executed.” 
 
 The dress rehearsal 
 
 The plan to raid the compound in Abbottabad developed rapidly and by April 21, 2011, Admiral Mullen attended a dress rehearsal in the Nevada desert. 
 
 “When I actually went to the rehearsal and watched it at night at a place where they built a compound just like Abbottabad and watched it in execution, that just gave me great confidence that they could execute this,” Mullen said. 
 
 He met every member of the SEAL Team Six that would ultimately carry out the mission. 
 
 “I got to look each of them in the eye. They showed me in their execution of rehearsal and also in that steely-eyed glare that they give you that they were ready to go,” Mullen said. 
 
 Some of the men weren’t yet aware who they were preparing to attack, but Mullen’s presence signaled that they were going after a high-value target. 
 
 “They knew certainly how critical this was. They knew who they were and who they were working with,” he said. “They may not even have known it was bin Laden at that point, but I'm sure they suspected it.” 
 
 One week later, it looked like weather conditions in Pakistan would be perfect for the raid — a moonless night with clear skies. If the raid didn’t happen that night, it could be months before weather conditions would be appropriate again for this high-risk operation. 
 
 Making the decision 
 
 Armed with the confidence that the Special Forces could carry out the mission, it was decision time. So on Thursday, April 28, 2011, the president gathered his advisers in the Situation Room, located below ground level in the White House. 
 
 “There was no consensus,” Biden said. “The president on the last day got us all down in the Situation Room and he said, ‘Okay, it’s basically a roll call.’” 
 
 Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recommended an air strike with no forces on the ground. CIA Director Panetta supported a raid by Special Forces and so did Secretary of State Clinton. Vice President Biden wanted to wait on further proof that bin Laden was indeed in the compound. 
 
 “It was never contentious because I think everybody understood both the pros and cons of the action,” Obama said. “People who were advocating action understood that if this did not work, if we proved to be wrong, there would be severe geopolitical consequences and obviously most importantly, we might be putting our brave Navy SEALs in danger.” 
 
 During the meeting, the president never indicated which way he was leaning. After the discussion, he dismissed his team and said he’d have a decision in the morning. He had dinner with his family and then went to his study after his wife and daughters went to bed. 
 
 “Well, there is no doubt that you don't sleep as much that evening as you do on a normal night,” the president said. “I stayed up late and I woke up early.” 
 
 The next morning, in the Diplomatic Room of the White House, he told his national security advisers that the mission was a go. 
 
 “You have some serenity in knowing that you've made the best possible decision that you can and, you know, in that situation you just, you do some praying,” Obama said. 
 
 A trio of national security advisers – John Brennan, Tom Donilon and Denis McDonough – had prepared briefing points for the president, but it was clear his mind was made up. 
 
 “My recollection is that he said, ‘It’s a go, we’re going to do the assault. We’re going to do the raid. Complete the orders, let’s go,’” said Donilon. 
 
 Keeping the Secret 
 
 In order to not raise suspicions, the president and his advisers had to keep up their weekend plans. 
 
 Secretary Clinton said she faced an awkward question at a wedding for one of her daughter’s friends. 
 
 “It was so ironic,” she said. “All these smart young people who work in all kinds of enterprises, one of them came up and said, ‘Do you think we’ll ever get bin Laden?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. I have no way of knowing, but I can tell you this, we’ll keep trying.’” 
 
 She also hid the raid from her husband. 
 
 “This was such an important secret to keep,” she said. “No one in the State Department knew. “I just felt a personal responsibility to keep it close, but that meant that I was basically, you know, having to consult with myself, to be honest.” 
 
 Moments after giving the go-ahead for the raid, the president and the first lady boarded Marine One on a trip to inspect tornado damage in Tuscaloosa, Ala. And on Saturday night – the evening before the raid – he attended the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and chuckled when a joke about bin Laden was made by comedian Seth Meyers. 
 
 “That was a little bit of acting going on there because my mind was elsewhere,” he said. 
 
 National Security Advisor Donilon said that when he left the White House Correspondents’ Dinner early, a reporter asked why he was leaving before the event concluded. 
 
 “I got this thing tomorrow,” Donilon said as offhandedly as he could. 
 
 The raid 
 
 On Sunday, May 1, 2011, the president’s advisers gathered in the Situation Room at around 11 a.m. Half a world away, the SEAL team waited for nightfall. 
 
 So as not to arouse suspicion that a major gathering was under way in the West Wing, the team ordered pizza from several different places and also sent someone to Costco to get food. 
 
 The president played nine holes of golf at Andrews Air Force Base before heading to the Situation Room at around 2 p.m. 
 
 “It is one of those rare moments when you know that the man you’re watching is putting everything on the line,” Biden said. “Everything on the line. Not only risking the lives of these incredible, incredible warriors, but also knowing that if he’s wrong about this man, he’s going to pay a very, very high price for it.” 
 
 At around 2:30 p.m., word arrived that the first wave of helicopters had left Jalalabad, Afghanistan, for Abbottabad with Navy SEALs, a Pakistani-American translator and a service dog named Cairo. At the president’s request, two Chinook helicopters stayed close by with additional SEALs as backup. 
 
 “They were accustomed to operating in the dark,” Obama said. “They were accustomed to landing in the compounds where they weren’t sure what was behind closed doors. These guys were all trained to do that.” 
 
 “A lot of them had as much gray hair as you and me and, you know, if you had passed them on the street, you might have – and if they were in civilian clothes – you might have thought they were accountants or doctors or, you know, worked at Home Depot.” 
 
 After the mission started, the CIA provided audio and video of the raid in real time in a smaller room next to the Situation Room. The atmosphere, said Admiral Mullen, was tense. 
 
 Soon, the president and his advisers began crowding into the room where the video was being played, which was never meant to hold as many people as it did that day. Brigadier General Marshall “Brad” Webb was receiving and interpreting information from the mission. Never expecting Obama to come in the room, he was sitting in the chair intended for the president. 
 
 “He started to get up and people were starting to go through the protocol and figuring out how to rearrange things,” the president said. “I said, ‘You don’t worry about it. You just focus on what you’re doing. I’m sure we can find a chair and I’ll sit right next to him.’ And that’s how I ended up (on a) folding chair.” 
 
 The group watched the hazy, but intelligible images and gasped when the first helicopter’s rotor stopped turning and it suddenly dropped, crashing over a stone wall. 
 
 “That helicopter didn’t make it to the right spot and everyone went, like, ‘Whoa,’” Biden said. 
 
 Obama remembers seeing the Secretary of State cover her mouth with her hand. 
 
 “It was just the shock of the moment,” Clinton said. “It was, I mean, all of us sitting there, and I would even predict probably our military and defense colleagues, you know, for a minute were kind of holding that breath again.” 
 
 The mishap was blamed on a bad downdraft and unusually warm temperatures, which can affect lift and maneuverability. The president called it a “touch and go moment.” 
 
 “The only thing that I was thinking about throughout this entire enterprise was, ‘I really want to get those guys back home safe,’” he added. “I want to make sure that the decision I’ve made has not resulted in them putting their lives at risk in vain, and if I got that part of it right, if I could look myself in the mirror and say as commander in chief I made a good call.” 
 
 Back inside the Situation Room, the loss of a helicopter didn’t make any difference in Admiral McRaven's monotone play-by-play voice, beamed in from Afghanistan. 
 
 “Did not miss a beat. He is a cool customer,” said Obama. 
 
 Clinton recalled watching the SEALs leave the helicopters. 
 
 “We could see our guys moving,” she said. “It was an intense experience for all of us because it was real time, visually, until we lost the visual connection inside the building.” 
 
 The SEALs had moved inside the compound with their body armor, weapons and night vision. 
 
 “At this point, I think all of us understand that we’re a long way to go before the night is done,” Obama said. “And, you know, I’ve said this was the longest 40 minutes of my life.” 
 
 As the SEALs moved inside, the national security team listened for “Geronimo,” the code name for bin Laden. 
 
 “We knew that was the call sign and when we heard that, they felt they had identified Geronimo, that was the first moment, and then Geronimo KIA,” the president said. 
 
 Several members of the president’s national security team told NBC News that there were provisions in place to take bin Laden alive. 
 
 “But we also understood that it was not likely that he was going to be giving himself up in that way,” Obama said, “and that there was a strong possibility that he would end up being killed if in fact he was in the compound.” 
 
 Along with precision and planning, prayer played a role for some of the president’s closest advisers. Vice President Biden and Admiral Mullen both nervously spun rosary rings on their fingers as they received word that the body of the man they believed was bin Laden had been put on a helicopter with U.S. forces. 
 
 “We knew the mission had been successful in that bin Laden was on board, but then it was an hour flight back,” Biden said. 
 
 Biden had begun to put his rosary away when he felt a tap on his shoulder from Mullen. 
 
 “I leaned down," Mullen explained. "I said, ‘Mr. Vice President, not yet. Keep it going because as important as killing, capturing or killing bin Laden was, it was more important to get him out.’ And so we were a long way, even as we got bin Laden, his body in that helicopter, we were a long way from completing that mission at that point.” 
 
 The death photo 
 
 When the SEAL team made it safely back to Afghanistan, photos were transmitted to the president and his team to offer photographic proof that bin Laden was dead. 
 
 When asked about seeing the picture of bin Laden, who had been shot in the head, the president took a long pause. 
 
 “I think it’s wrong to say that I did a high five,” he said, “because you have a picture of a dead body and, you know, there’s I think regardless of who it is, you always have to be sober about death. But understanding the satisfaction for the American people, what it would mean for 9/11 families, what it would mean for the children of folks who died in the Twin Towers who never got to know their parents, I think there was a deep-seated satisfaction for the country at that moment.” 
 
 Secretary Clinton believes strongly that the president was right not to release the photos. 
 
 “I looked at them,” she said. “Obviously, (it's) never easy to see any dead body, but it was part of the job. I think we made the right decision not to sensationalize this, not to desecrate it, so to speak. His body was flown to a Navy ship. It was given a proper Islamic burial at sea and I think that we handled it exactly right.” 
 
 After the president and his team felt confident that bin Laden was indeed dead, they began calling Cabinet members, Congressional leaders and foreign heads of state. 
 
 The president called Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. 
 
 “I think it was an important symbol of who we are as a people,” he said of the calls. “We get into these partisan fights, administrations come and go, but there’s a certain continuity about who we are and what we care about and what our values are.” 
 
 For Mullen, one of the most important calls placed was to his Pakistani military counterpart about the crashed helicopter. 
 
 When the first pictures of the wreckage emerged hours later, aviation websites went wild. The crashed chopper appeared to be proof of a stealth version of the Blackhawk that the United States had been rumored to be developing for years. Its noise-reducing technology and unique fin had been designed for near silent, invisible operation. In coming days, neighborhood children picked through pieces of what had been among the military's best kept secrets. 
 
 “I called General [Ashfaq Parvez] Kayani in Pakistan,” Mullen said. “I felt obligated to let him know what had happened … and then part of that conversation was about the helicopter and I said, ‘We need that back.’” 
 
 As more calls were made, the news began to leak, spread at lightning speed by the Internet. The president and his advisers, however, were unaware that throngs of young people were pouring into Lafayette Park to cheer outside the White House. 
 
 “The thing that surprised me that night and I don’t think we had planned for was the public reaction,” Donilon said. “We walked out and we could hear the noise and I remember very clearly turning to whoever was walking next to me saying, ‘What is that?’” 
 
 Secretary Clinton described it as an “astonishing moment.” 
 
 “We could hear this roar. We had no idea what it was,” she said. “Then all of a sudden we were able to decipher, 'U.S.A., U.S.A.'” 
 
 Telling his family 
 
 Before the president heard the cheering crowds and addressed the nation, he checked in with the first lady. 
 
 “She’s at dinner," he said. "I let her know, you know, that I’m probably going to miss dinner because I’ve got a few other things going on tonight. It turns out we had a fairly important thing to announce.” 
 
 He recalled telling his daughters that bin Laden was dead. 
 
 “Malia and Sasha, I think, were too young to fully absorb 9/11. On the other hand, they’ve grown like all our children have grown up in the shadow of 9/11 and terrorism and understood who Osama bin Laden was.” 
 
 The president said that the full impact of the mission hit him a few days later when he met the SEALs who had carried out the operation. He said that he gave the pilot of the helicopter that crashed a “pretty good hug.” 
 
 “They presented me with the flag that had gone on that mission, signed by all of them on the back and I think it’s fair to say that will probably be the most important possession that I leave with from this presidency,” he said. 
 
 Editor's note: Click here to watch the special edition of Rock Center with Brian Williams, 'Inside the Situation Room,' that aired Wednesday, May 2 on NBC.
– A CIA operative in charge of hunting down Osama bin Laden is a war profiteer who helped bilk the Pentagon out of some $200 million, reports Gawker. Marty Martin was put in charge of tracking down the terror mastermind from 2002-2004, and boasted to the AP that those early efforts "led to this great day" the day bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs. After he left the CIA, Martin joined International Oil Trading Company, a Florida operation that delivered fuel to US forces in the Middle East, a company accused by both Congress and the Pentagon of grossly overcharging the government, to the tune of $204 million. Martin was also accused in a Florida lawsuit of paying a $9 million bribe to Jordanian officials to win exclusive fuel shipping rights, and has been linked to dirty campaign contributions given to (and returned by) John McCain during his bid for the presidency. Contacted by Gawker to comment on the various charges, Martin responded: "No no, man. I don't want to talk to you, man."