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The Four Helicopters chuffed urgently through the Khyber Pass,racing over the lights of Peshawar and down toward the quiet cityof Abbottabad and the prosperous neighborhood of Bilal Town. In thedark houses below slept doctors, lawyers, retired military officers— and perhaps the world's most wanted fugitive. The birds wereon their way to find out. Ahead loomed a strange-looking house in a walled compound. Thepilots knew it well, having trained for their mission using aspecially built replica. The house was three stories tall, as if toguarantee a clear view of approaching threats, and the walls werehigher and thicker than any ordinary resident would require.Another high wall shielded the upper balcony from view. A secondsmaller house stood nearby. As a pair of backup helicopters orbitedoverhead, an HH-60 Pave Hawk chopper and a CH-47 Chinook dippedtoward the compound. A dozen SEALs fast-roped onto the roof of abuilding from the HH-60 before it lost its lift and landed hardagainst a wall. The Chinook landed, and its troops clambered out. Half a world away, it was Sunday afternoon in the crowded WhiteHouse Situation Room. President Barack Obama was stone-faced as hefollowed the unfolding drama on silent video screens — a dramahe alone had the power to start but now was powerless to control. At a meeting three days earlier, Obama had heard his optionssummarized, three ways of dealing with tantalizing yet uncertainintelligence that had been developed over painstaking months andyears. He could continue to watch the strange compound using spiesand satellites in hopes that the prey would reveal himself. Hecould knock out the building from a safe distance using B-2 bombersand their precision-guided payloads. Or he could unleash thespecial force of SEALs known as Team 6. How strong was the intelligence? he asked. A 50% to 80% chance, hewas told. What could go wrong? Plenty: a hostage situation, adiplomatic crisis — a dozen varieties of the sort of botchthat ruins a presidency. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter authorizeda daring helicopter raid on Tehran to free American hostages. Theensuing debacle helped bury his re-election hopes. To wait was to risk a leak, now that more than a hundred people hadbeen briefed on the possible raid. To bomb might mean that the U.S.would never know for sure whether the mission was a success. As foran assault by special forces, U.S. relations with the Pakistanigovernment were tricky enough without staging a raid on sovereignterritory. It is said that only the hard decisions make it to a President'splate. This was one. Obama's inner circle was deeply divided. Aftermore than an hour of discussion, Obama dismissed the group, sayinghe wanted time to reflect — but not much time. The nextmorning, as the President left the White House to tour tornadodamage in Alabama, he paused on his way through the DiplomaticReception Room to render his decision: send the SEALs. On Saturday the weather was cloudy in Abbottabad. Obama kept hisappointment at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner, wherea ballroom full of snoops had no inkling of the news volcanorumbling under their feet. The next morning, White House officialsclosed the West Wing to visitors, and Obama joined his staff in theSituation Room as the mission lifted off from a base in Jalalabad,southern Afghanistan. The bet was placed: American choppers invadedthe airspace of a foreign country without warning, to attack awalled compound housing unknown occupants. Obama returned to the Situation Room a short time later as thebirds swooped down on the mysterious house. Over the next 40minutes, chaos addled the satellite feeds. A hole was blown throughthe side of the house, gunfire erupted. SEALs worked their waythrough the smaller buildings inside the compound. Others swarmedupward in the main building, floor by floor, until they came to theroom where they hoped to find their cornered target. Then they wereinside the room for a final burst of gunfire. What had happened? The President sat and stared while several ofhis aides paced. The minutes "passed like days," one officialrecalls. The grounded chopper felt like a bad omen. Then a voice briskly crackled with the hoped-for code name: "Visualon Geronimo.". We are high quality suppliers, our products such as Horn Speaker for Iphone Manufacturer , Camera Lense for Iphone Manufacturer for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Ipad Carrying Case with Bluetooth Keyboard.
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