Quotes About Abbottabad

I was the only outsider to visit the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden lived before the Pakistani military demolished it.

In February I secured permission to enter Osama bin Laden's compound in the northern Pakistani city of Abbottabad, where he was killed and where he had lived for the last half-decade of his life; the first, and only, journalist to do so.

Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.

The image we have of bin Laden in his final years in Abbottabad is of an aging man with a graying beard watching old footage of himself; just another suburban dad flipping though the channels with his remote.

On the choppers were twenty-three SEALs and a Pakistani-American who spoke the local language, Pashto. If crowds gathered at the Abbottabad compound, he would tell people there was a Pakistani military exercise going on and they should go home. Also on the flight to Abbottabad was a dog named Cairo, who would prevent "squirters" from sneaking out of the compound, sniff out any explosives, and hunt for possible safe rooms.