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Osama bin Laden Killed; Bin Laden's Death Unwittingly Live- Tweeted By Witness; Terrorism Analysts Suspect Pakistani officials Knew Bin Laden's Location; Construction Continues at World Trade Center Site

Aired May 02, 2011 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And good afternoon. It is 3:00 on the East Coast of the United States. I'm Anderson Cooper in New York.

I'm coming to you live from Ground Zero. In the words of the president, Barack Obama, it is a good day for America. Osama bin Laden is dead.

I am joined in Washington by CNN's Wolf Blitzer, who was on the air breaking the news last night.

And before we go to Wolf, we are learning more this hour about the covert operation that took bin Laden out in Pakistan. And here is a brand-new image of the compound. It is a satellite image. United States officials are making a point of saying today that bin Laden was hiding behind a woman, using a woman as a human shield in the moments before he was shot in the head by U.S. special forces. We're going to hear from former CIA operatives over the course of the next two hours on how this mission went down.

But, first, Wolf, what is the latest coming out of the White House right now?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, they are providing, Anderson, a lot more details.

John Brennan, the president's counterterrorism adviser, himself a former high-ranking official of the CIA, just spent nearly an hour, about 45 minutes or so, answering reports' questions, providing a wealth of detail. We are scrutinizing all of that information. We are getting a whole lot more coming in not only from the White House, from the Pentagon, the State Department, the U.S. intelligence community, from around the world.

Pakistani officials are saying one thing. Afghani officials are saying another thing.

Let's go to the White House, though, first. Our White House correspondent Dan Lothian is standing by.

Dan, you were just in this briefing with John Brennan.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

BLITZER: He is a blunt-talking, straight-talking kind of guy, and we learned a lot more about this operation.

LOTHIAN: We did, Wolf.

And I should point out I have attended many briefings with him over the past few years on counterintelligence situations, and I have never seen him this animated and certainly not providing this kind of detailed information in public.

In fact, during the briefing, I was exchanging e-mails with a senior administration official who said -- quote -- "I have never seen a briefing anything like this."

He laid out, as you pointed out, details of this operation dating back years, the patience of following a lot of the intelligence to get to that compound. What is interesting, though, as he and other officials have pointed out, is that the U.S. forces did not know 100 percent that Osama bin Laden was inside that compound.

There was described by officials a lot of circumstantial, strong circumstantial evidence, but again not 100 percent guarantee that he would be in there. One thing that he did show was a lot of emotion, talking about the tense moments leading up to the actual shooting and killing of Osama bin Laden. Officials back here at the White House in the Situation Room had been monitoring in real time the entire mission.

We did not -- we were not able to find out if that meant that they could see it on video, if they could hear it via audio. What we do know, though is that they were following step-by-step as it was playing out in real time and it was a very tense situation.

He described how a lot of people there were holding their breaths, that many of these counterintelligence experts have never been in quite a tense situation like this. And he described that -- quote -- "The minutes passed like days."

He said a lot of people were -- quote -- "holding their breath." So the administration laying out, Wolf, all of the hard work from the intelligence community that ended with the killing of Osama bin Laden.

BLITZER: There's no doubt, Dan, that this was a very risky operation and there was a collective nervousness obviously when one of those helicopters, two helicopters went in with the special operations forces of the Navy SEALs, the CIA operatives.

And one of those helicopters went down. And there was -- there was a lot of nervousness. Tell our viewers what happened.

LOTHIAN: That is right. Well, the helicopter actually had what they describe as mechanical problems, and Mr. Brennan saying that that was what he viewed as the most tense moment throughout as all of this was playing out, because he says that when you plan an operation like this, you always hope that you can accomplish it through step one or the A operation, but then sometimes you have to go to that backup plan. And in this particular case, when that second helicopter was not operational, they had to go to plan B. And they were still successful in getting all of those who were involved in that mission out of there. But, as you pointed out, this really was sort of a tense situation, and as they describe it, the gutsiest call that this president or any president, at least in their words, has had to do.

BLITZER: It was certainly a gutsy call for the president, the commander in chief, to make this decision. The risks were enormous. Dan Lothian, thanks very much.

Anderson, I can tell you from my own reporting, a lot of those officials who were in the Situation Room when they heard that one of those helicopters had been disabled, it brought back memories of 1979, when another president, Jimmy Carter, sent helicopters to rescue American hostages, American diplomats being held hostage in Iran.

We all know what happened to those helicopters then. And that mission ended in total failure and brought back some horrible, horrible memories for many of those officials who had gathered with the president in the Situation Room.

COOPER: Well, also, even more reason than that, the "Black Hawk Down" situation in Somalia. One of those helicopters actually destroyed also by special forces, so that it did not fall into the wrong hands, so that some of the equipment that was inside there would not be stripped down.

Apparently, U.S. special forces personnel also destroyed the helicopter that went down in Pakistan.

Wolf, I want to bring in CNN correspondent Kaj Larsen in Los Angeles.

Tell -- Kaj, you actually worked as a journalist in and around Tora Bora. Tora Bora was really the last time there was a definite locator on Osama bin Laden. How was it that he was able to slip away back then?

KAJ LARSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what is so interesting, Anderson, about the terrain at Tora Bora is it is really incredibly mountainous and rugged. So it was easy for him to slip out the backdoor, so to speak, and walk to Pakistan.

What is interesting about Tora Bora -- and I saw this when I was there and I was in bin Laden's cave -- is I think it gave a lot of people in the general public an idea that bin Laden was burrowed away in a cave somewhere in some Northwest Frontier Province in Pakistan.

Most of the intelligence experts believe the opposite, that because of the logistics, he was probably in a village or a hamlet, which, of course, turned out to be true.

COOPER: From an operational standpoint, how difficult for special forces is this kind of operation? I mean, how long would they have to prepare for a site-specific operation like this? LARSEN: Well, the beauty of the special operations forces in the United States military is that they really, truly are the tip of the spear. And you combine that with the intelligence analysts who are working in the support structures behind them.

So they could execute this raid very quickly if necessary. I think because of the high-value nature of the target here, this was meticulously planned. They allegedly had built a mockup of the compound. They would have dirt-dived and rehearsed this mission, going through the house time and time again until their moves were completely in synch and they were ready to execute.

Probably most amazing about this story is that the total time on target, which is a significant number from an operational perspective, was somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 minutes, exceptionally fast, exceptionally well-executed.

COOPER: And they are able to provide real-time video for policy- makers back -- I understand in -- President Obama, among others, was able to watch real-time video.

LARSEN: They were.

From an operator's perspective, that is a double-edged sword, because you could be watching, but there is nothing that you can do to impact events on the ground. But technology has gone to the point where they can observe in real time exactly what is happening. And a mission of this incredible strategic importance, that almost was certainly happening.

COOPER: And, again, we are learning hour by hour more and more details.

Kaj, thanks very much.

Wolf, it's remarkable to think. We seen it in movies of policy- makers watches special operation forces operating in faraway places in real time.

Clearly, it seems that was the incident, that was the case in this operation. Imagine being in that Situation Room watching it happening half-a-world away. Incredible.

BLITZER: Yes. That operation lasted, they say, 40 minutes on the ground, but then those helicopters, they had to take not only bin Laden's body, but all the American troops, the special operations forces, the intelligence operatives.

They had to fly them out of Pakistani airspace to Afghanistan, did not inform the Pakistani government of what was going on until all of them, according to John Brennan, just briefing reporters, until all of the helicopters and the American troops with bin Laden's body were out of Pakistan. They clearly did not trust the Pakistanis enough to give them that kind of information.

Let's go to the scene right now. "TIME" magazine contributor Omar Waraich is in Abbottabad in Pakistan right now. That is where that big compound where bin Laden was hiding out is located.

Omar, set the scene for us. You are joining us on the phone. It is only an hour, hour-and-a-half drive from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. He was in no cave. He was in a mansion, for all practical purposes.

OMAR WARAICH, CONTRIBUTOR, "TIME": Well, actually Wolf, it is a bit longer that an hour. It takes two to three hours to get there up a road that snakes very slowly and dizzyingly at times northwards.

Abbottabad is a garrison town. It's named after a British colonial officer. It has got a very heavy, as you mention, military presence there. It has the military academy, Pakistani's equivalent of West Point, there.

There are sensitive installations along the way, like the ordnances factory. The neighborhood he was staying in is actually quite discrete. From what I spoke -- was speaking to residents of Abbottabad, they described it, as you said, as a well-heeled neighborhood, a neighborhood that is populated by retired army officers, doctors and the like.

It didn't draw many suspicions from people at all. However, I did speak to a construction worker who says his home was barely five minutes away who had passed the house, was familiar with that house. He says that he was not sure of who lived there. He was suspect about who owned it. He said it was owned by a Pashtun man just known as Akba (ph).

Throughout the rest of the town, there seems to be a great deal of incredulity. No one I spoke to claimed to have ever glimpsed Osama bin Laden. It seems, if he was staying there, he was staying very -- that he was staying very knew very much within the bounds of that compound.

Yet they were utterly bewildered by the fact that he could have been staying here for a number of years. It was -- why such an important place? They would ask, why is it that no one else seemed to know?

And then this is a part of Pakistan that is largely undisturbed by either suicide bombings or dramatic events of any kind. So, for them to have gone through the raid last night and then deal with the world's media turning up today, it has been a slightly startling experience.

BLITZER: Given the location of this mansion, this compound where bin Laden was hiding out and all of the retired and active-duty Pakistani military who were living in the city of Abbottabad, is it conceivable that there was no assistance provided by Pakistani authorities at some level to bin Laden?

WARAICH: Well, Wolf, it's -- Pakistan's intelligence agencies often pride themselves on being very efficient almost describing powers of omniscience and omnipotence to themselves.

The fact that someone -- that bin Laden could have been hiding, as you said, in such a -- in what is not a remote part of Pakistan -- we are not talking about a back corner of Balochistan. We're not talking about somewhere in the mountains, but, as we discussed, just mere hours away from the capital.

For him to be unnoticed either signals two things. Either -- either the Pakistani intelligence agencies are far, far more incompetent than they have ever claimed to be, or that they actually knew that he was there. And judging by the reaction of people in Abbottabad, they are going by the latter.

BLITZER: I suspect U.S. authorities believe the same thing.

Omar, thank you very much. Omar Waraich is a contributor for our sister publication "TIME" magazine. He happens to be in Abbottabad right now. That's where bin Laden was found and killed yesterday.

Anderson, I have got to tell you, based on everything I am hearing, the strain in the U.S./Pakistani relationship is significant, because as you well know, the Pakistanis hate the fact that the U.S. didn't trust them enough to give them this so-called actionable intelligence and let them get the job done. It was the U.S. that wanted to do it themselves, because they simply did not trust the Pakistanis.

They thought bin Laden would slip away if they shared it at all. And they didn't. So it is causing a bit of a sensitive break, if you will, in that U.S./Pakistani relationship, which is so critical.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: -- saying that the Pakistani military and intelligence service have a lot of explaining to do about how it was possible.

I mean, we have all sort of envisioned Osama bin Laden -- the cliche is the idea of him living in a cave somewhere in North Waziristan. To find out that he was a few hours' drive away from Islamabad is just extraordinary.

And for years, Wolf, as you know, Pakistani officials have denied categorically that bin Laden was even in Pakistan at all, just as they denied Ayman al-Zawahri is there or Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban. Hard for them now to continue denying, given that he was found so close to Islamabad.

We are also just getting breaking news right now on how the U.S. tracked down the man who eventually led forces to bin Laden. It is a fascinating story -- new details on that ahead. Stay tuned. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: All right. We are watching what is going on. Anderson Cooper is at Ground Zero in New York City. I'm here in Washington, D.C.

Gloria Borger is getting important information from U.S. officials on this operation.

The key was this so-called courier who was going back forth. This compound apparently did not have a telephone, no Internet service. That silence raised so many questions for the U.S. intelligence community.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. It did.

And this is a story, Wolf, that goes back for years, Wolf. We have now learned, according to my sources, that this courier was actually a protege of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. And when intelligence officials interviewed detainees about some of the names of the couriers who might actually be aiding Osama bin Laden, some of the detainees, conceivably KSM, held out on them.

And by holding out, the intelligence agency figures, you know what, this guy is probably something. The problem was, Wolf, they only knew his nickname. They didn't know what his real name was. But it was considered high-value information, so they pressed.

They trailed him in what I was told was classic espionage and intelligence work. They learned his real name from an entirely different part of the world. They tracked him down. But they could not actually follow him around. They had a sighting of him, so they set up an elaborate surveillance effort that led them in August of 2010 to that compound.

And one of my sources said to me, when we saw that compound, we said, wow. This is different.

Then, Leon Panetta, the CIA director, said to them, I want a body count of everybody who lives there, who they are, where they are sleeping. It was the courier, his family, the courier's brother and his family. And then the question was, there was a third family up on the top floor. Seemed like it could have been Osama bin Laden's family. They weren't sure.

One hypothesis was -- hypothesis was that it was Osama's family without Osama. They weren't sure. So, in the end, the CIA analysis was that there was a 60 to 80 percent probability that it was indeed Osama bin Laden in the compound, but they didn't know for sure.

BLITZER: And one of the tips, not only the lack of Internet service, the lack of phone service. Why would an expensive million- dollar home like this be without the basics in the 21st century?

BORGER: And --

BLITZER: And the other one was the fact that the garbage, they didn't allow the garbage to be --

BORGER: It was burned.

BLITZER: They burned it all internally.

BORGER: Well, here is the other thing one of my sources said to me, was, we really suspected Osama bin Laden might be there, because he was in the construction business. And they said, this was really well-constructed. And so they thought, you know what? He might have had something to do with it.

BLITZER: And, remember, the initial indications almost a year ago, August 2010, they began to suspect something was going on there.

BORGER: Right. Oh, absolutely. Well, that is when they discovered the compound.

But this went on for years before. So, the question -- they did get high-value information from detainees, but maybe because the detainees were holding out on certain things and in using what they were holding out on, they knew that it was important.

BLITZER: And that is what happens.

BORGER: Intelligence work. Right. Absolutely.

BLITZER: But I think that it is clear a very, very risky operation.

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: Very risky.

BLITZER: They could have just sent a Predator drone fly over and drop a Hellfire missile.

BORGER: Right.

BLITZER: It could have killed a lot of innocent people.

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: But the president did not want to do that. I believe the CIA director did not want to do that, because the president clearly wanted evidence. He did not want to drop a bomb on a place and not have the DNA evidence. They wanted the know the target that they had struck.

BLITZER: They wanted the body.

BORGER: Absolutely.

BLITZER: And they -- in fact, they got it.

Gloria, good reporting. Thanks.

Anderson, I have got to tell you, everyone -- and I have spoken to a lot of political types here in with Washington -- obviously, the Democrats, but a lot of Republicans, conservatives, they are praising President Obama on this day for having the guts to go ahead and give -- give the authorization for this very risky military operation.

COOPER: Yes.

We have also video from inside the compound. We're going to show you that coming up taken moments after bin Laden was killed. You can clearly see a pool of blood next to a bed. We will show that to you next.

We will also talk to Jill Dougherty at the State Department for new details about the role that Pakistan played in this operation and what it means for our relationship with that country. You and I talked about that a little bit, Wolf. We will have more of that with Jill Dougherty right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: And welcome back. We are live at Ground Zero.

It is a really interesting atmosphere here today. Work continues on the rebuilding here at Ground Zero, but for several blocks, there's really hundreds of people, probably thousands throughout the day, who are just coming down here, want to be here, at least for a little bit today. A lot of people just kind of talking with each other on the streets, taking pictures.

You're -- you're -- want to show you video from ABC News showing the aftermath of the raid on that compound in Pakistan. As you can see, the room was left bloody -- left bloody by the mission.

And we just learned from the White House briefing that Osama bin Laden was apparently using a woman, one of his wives, as a human shield -- this according to the authorities.

I want to bring in Jill Dougherty. She's at the U.S. State Department.

Jill, what are we -- what is the latest that we are hearing about Pakistan's involvement and/or lack of involvement in this operation?

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that is the big question.

And I think, Anderson, the biggest question is, did they actually know whether -- that Osama bin Laden was living in that compound? Because, obviously, that raises questions. If they did, why didn't they go after him?

And the Pakistani ambassador to the United States is saying, we did not know. If we had, we would have gotten him.

But, also, we had a press avail here at the State Department with Hillary Clinton. And I asked her, does this undermine the faith that the U.S. has in Pakistan?

She said that cooperation with Pakistan actually helped the United States to find -- lead us to bin Laden and also to that compound where he was hiding. Other officials on background are saying that they would not have been able to done it really without this general anti-terror cooperation.

But I think that is where you have to begin to define things. And it is still unclear. Yes, general information, and probably some that led them to it, but the crunch time comes when that operation took place. John Brennan, the president's adviser, just about an hour ago said that the United States did not tell Pakistan about it specifically until the U.S. team was out of there.

So, that gives you the picture. They didn't trust them enough to tell them the details of it. But, in general, they have this relationship which is very helpful.

COOPER: Yes. Well, there have been obviously, as you well know, concerns for years about Pakistan's intelligence services, the ISI in particular, and their relationships with extremist groups, members of the Taliban, other extremist groups. So it is understandable that U.S. officials would have serious concerns about whether or not to tell Pakistani officials.

I just talked to former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who for years has been denying that Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan, just as he continues to deny that the head of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, or that the number two in al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, are in Pakistan.

Do we know at this point -- what are Pakistani officials saying about this while operation? Because Musharraf says, while he does -- while he is upset or does not approve of a U.S. operation in Pakistan territory without informing Pakistani officials or having them involved, he does think this was a successful operation.

Have we heard publicly from Pakistani officials?

DOUGHERTY: Well, the -- I would say the government is actually saying that it was good, that it was good for both the United States and for Pakistan that this happened.

Musharraf seems to be taking a more negative approach. But, certainly, I think -- and you have heard this -- I have heard this from U.S. officials, who have said they heard what they wanted to hear from the Pakistanis, who were, in general, supportive and complimentary of the operation, saying that it helped both sides.

COOPER: We did hear from Senator Carl Levin today, who said that the Pakistani military and their intelligence service have some explaining to do, some questions that they need to answer. We will see if there is any kind of investigation further about this.

Jill, appreciate the reporting.

For how more on how -- what the operation looked like and how it went down, we are going to talk to former CIA operative Bob Baer. He's going to join us ahead.

Also, more than six hours before we learned that bin Laden was killed, a man in the town, in Pakistan, tweeted about the top-secret operation that he heard going on. He had no idea really what was going on, but he knew something was going on.

We will hear from him. And Brooke Baldwin is all over this story. She will show us his tweets next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to the continuing coverage. We are following the fallout, and it is enormous, from the death of Osama bin Laden yesterday in Pakistan, in a city, and not in a cave, and not in some rural area, but in a city in Pakistan about a two-hour drive outside of the Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.

We are watching all of this unfold. Anderson Cooper is with us. Anderson, a lot of reaction coming in from Washington and all over the world, but I suspect that CIA operatives those directly involved and we may never know their specific names, but they were instrumental along with the Navy Seals in getting this job done.

COOPER: Well no, doubt about it. Clearly from the description of the operation, there was a fair amount of human intelligence, human involvement in this operation, and in addition to signals intelligence and other kinds of intelligence.

But I want to bring in Bob Barre who brings us in by phone, a former CIA officer who joins us right now from Irvine, California. Bob, in terms of CIA involvement in an operation like this, how does it work? How it is coordinated? And because it does seem like a lot of human intelligence was involved in staking this place out over many, many months.

BOB BAER, FORMER CIA OPERATIVE (via telephone): Oh, absolutely. I mean that the Seals did not fly in there blind. They had eyes on the doctrine and that is military doctrine, and doctrine for the CIA to have eyes on up to the raid for weeks at a time. You have to make absolutely sure that the target has not moved, and that military has not moved in for instance and that the rest of it. So they have had this thing covered with both intercept, human sources, informants and probably people inside of the Pakistani army, almost undoubtedly.

And to do a raid like this is enormously risky for the White House, and they had to be 100 percent sure that everything was ready. This was not done by chance, you can count on that.

COOPER: It is amazing to me, Bob, that bin Laden would stay in one location for that amount of time if they learned about this location back in August, that means me was there for a significant ament of time. The image that Americans had was that he was constantly on the move or living in one of the tribal areas to the north. Were you surprised at the location he ultimately was killed in?

BAER: Well, Anderson, I have to be frank about this. I have spent enough time in Pakistan to know that the police know everything about foreigners. You cannot build a compound -- this thing has been there since 2005, put razor wire around it and just go out to be a very visible presence and not have the intelligent service know about it.

I think that somebody, at some level in the Pakistani military was harboring him, and bin Laden thought he was being protected by Pakistan. There is no other explanation that can come to mind at this point.

COOPER: I agree with you on this. I don't know how someone can build a compound with huge walls, wire, and not arouse suspicion in a place like Pakistan where people on the street monitor everything that you do.

BAER: You can't. It is impossible. It is impossible. You will get a knock on the door if you are a foreigner, and they will check it out. It is very inefficient police service in areas that they control right next to the military garrison.

For all that the Pakistanis knew with Indian spies or something, they had to check it out. Bin Laden until proven otherwise was being protected of somebody in Pakistan. I'm convinced of it now.

COOPER: What does this do for cooperation between the United States and the Pakistani military services and Pakistan services going forward?

BAER: Well, it is a disaster. If you look at Afghanistan we know that the Haqqani forces are being protected by ISI, and you have to look they are on the other side. We are paying them billions of dollars every year, but they are fighting on the wrong side.

COOPER: Thank you, Bob Baer, for being with us this afternoon.

Wolf joins us now in D.C. Wolf, it is an interesting atmosphere here at ground zero today, people coming from all over the city, and tourists, and construction workers and people who just work in the area, and just kind of want to spend some time down here to today. You see the people milling around with pictures. It is like this often around ground zero, but it is a special atmosphere today. A lot of people coming here. The streets are clogged and people just want to be here, Wolf.

BLITZER: So many people thought they never would be able to appreciate this day based on what happened yesterday. They want to remember it for the rest of their lives, and there is obviously a great place to be at ground zero right now.

Anderson, we will get back to you in a few moments. Brooke Baldwin is joining us from the CNN center. And Brooke, there was somebody from the city where Osama bin Laden was hiding out who was tweeting about this operation even as it was going on. Tell the viewers what you know.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. It is an a pretty interesting facet to the story that speaks to the pervasiveness of social media in a world event like this. These are some of the most read tweets around the world today and this is all coming from the IT consultant living in Abbottabad in that neighborhood where they found Osama bin Laden. And he provided the first accounts of the raid that went by in the nearby compound.

I want to blow through a couple of these different tweets for you. This is happening 1:00 in the morning Pakistan time, and that is a full seven hours before president Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been used. This Twitter, and you can follow him now and be one of the 66,000 followers. Go to @reallyvirtual.

One of the first tweets, "Helicopter hovering above in Abbottabad at 1:00 a.m. is a rare event." And he continues tweeting, "take away helicopter before I take out my giant swatter." And the next tweet, as his windows begin to rattle, he says "A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad. I hope it is not the start of something nasty."

Then about two hours later, and two hours later with the help of some others that he has been convers conversing on, on Twitter and he tweets "Two helicopters down, and one down and could be the training accident scenario," they're say it was.

And then multiple hours later when the president addressed the nation and the world and he is realizing that it is the end of the world wide manhunt of Osama bin Laden, and he is tweeting, "Now I'm the guy who live blogged the Osama raid without knowing it."

So in the course of 24 hours of @reallyvirtual, and his name began to trend on Twitter and he jumped tens of thousands of followers in 24 hours live blogging the whole thing, Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, it is amazing the kind of information that you can pick up on Twitter, because it moves so quickly.

BALDWIN: So quickly.

BLITZER: And it goes indeed all over the world, and you can find out stuff, and who would have thought, I mean, I had not read the tweet in those hours before we all learned of what happened, I would have assumed that some Pakistani military helicopters were engaged in some sort of operation, and one of the helicopters went down and maybe a little firefight or training exercise or maybe going after some elements that they considered unfriendly. But who would have thought they were U.S. helicopters?

BALDWIN: Who would have thought?

BLITZER: It's an amazing story. Sometimes it is a lot more dramatic than fiction to be true. To be sure, movies will be made of this no doubt I have about that. Thank you very much, Brooke.

Anderson, as we watch all of this unfold, based on my experience and I'm sure your experience as a reporter, we are only beginning to get the tip of the iceberg about the details. We are in the coming days, maybe in the coming hours, but certainly in the coming days we will learn a whole lot more? COOPER: Yes. We should be cautious, because oftentimes the story that is put forward frankly by the U.S. officials early on, you know, it does not necessarily turn out to be fully accurate. You think back to the Jessica Lynch situation in the war in Iraq, and sometimes the stories in the early hours that it is put forward over time changes. So there is that caveat.

But right now we are relying on the information that the U.S. officials are telling us, and very difficult to get independent or confirmation on the ground at this point. But certainly in the hours and the days and the weeks ahead, we hope to get a more complete picture of what happened on the ground in the 40 to 45 minutes that the U.S. special forces were on the ground conducting this operation.

News of Osama bin Laden's death comes as welcomed relief for a number of people, and many of the families of the victims of 9/11, and we will hear from some of them shortly. Plus I will talk to a first responder at the world trade center on 9/11. That is coming up as well, and our coverage continues live from Washington and ground zero and all around the world. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: I want to bring in -- welcome back. We are live at ground zero, and I want to bring in James Ryder, who is retired from the New York police department. He was one of the first responders at the world trade center on 9/11. What is it like for you being here on this day now?

JAMES RYDER, 9/11 FIRST RESPONDER: It is emotional in a lot of different ways. I could not identify the emotion I had yesterday until a little while ago and maybe an hour ago.

COOPER: What was it?

RYDER: Several different emotions. There is happiness, relief, closure, and frustration and madness. This man killed a lot of people, and these people keep on dying. And now that he is gone there is a center of peace. But we move on with more death because there are a still a lot of people who are sick.

COOPER: And a lot of people being some of them first responders who came here to work at great personal risk to themselves and now suffering the consequences.

RYDER: Yes, breathing difficulties and cancers and losing of limbs and family members, post-traumatic stress, it is difficult.

COOPER: You see them as victims of bin Laden just like those who died here?

RYDER: Absolutely.

COOPER: You work with an organization to help?

RYDER: Yes, the Feel Good organization helps the first responders. Our mission is to make sure that the bill is passed and is transparent and that the $4 billion for that Bill is paid for and used for the responders who are sick and dying.

COOPER: When you heard that bin Laden was found not in some cave in north Waziristan, but in a compound that seemed to have been built for him near Pakistani military building not far from the capital of Pakistan, does that just -- does it sound fishy to you?

RYDER: It sounds like he is as arrogant as I always thought he was. It is not about him. It is not about his children or his wife. They are all just shields for him. That is all they are. He is a pompous arrogant son of a gun, and now he is dead.

COOPER: One of the things that President Obama was citing last night is the number of Muslims that Osama bin Laden killed and he tried to be the standard bearer, when he killed a lot of Muslims.

RYDER: That is my point. He is an arrogant son of a gun, and he let his own family members die as shields instead of worrying about himself. But he will find out in the bottom of the ocean, ere is no arrogance.

COOPER: The war continues though, and the threat, do you believe that the threat from Al Qaeda continues?

RYDER: Absolutely. I was 20 years in the NTPD. I know what security is and why it is need. We are in a different world since 9/11 and there are many people in the country who don't believe in freedom, and he is only one of them. He was the head of the snake, and now we have to deal with the rest of it.

COOPER: And we thank you for what you do here and for what you do for the first responders.

RYDER: Thank you, Anderson, for everything that you do.

COOPER: That is very nice. Thank you.

BLITZER: I love those first responders in New York, Anderson. I want to hear from so many of them, especially on this day. Stand by.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: By decapitating the head of the snake known as Al Qaeda, it is going to have important reverberations throughout the area on the Al Qaeda network.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: But could this really be the end of Al Qaeda or someone within the network who is going to step up and be the next Osama bin Laden? Al Qaeda expert Paul Cruikshank is standing to join us next. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COOPER: Welcome back. We're coming to you live from ground zero. Wolf Blitzer is in Washington. I want to bring in CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruikshank to discuss what happens to Al Qaeda now. Al Qaeda right now, do we know what happens? In terms of the actual organization --

PAUL CRUIKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: They are in full crisis mode right now and Al Qaeda provides the key strategic direction.

COOPER: Even now?

CRUIKSHANK: Even now. He was telegraphing them in all of these messages, telling people where to attack, which country, and when. Al Qaeda otherwise would be very fractured. And now with a danger that Al Qaeda could fracture, this is a real crisis for Al Qaeda now. Bin laden was an inspiration for recruits and for recruits joining this group and there will probably be less recruits.

COOPER: There are Al Qaeda-affiliated groups. There are groups which look up to Al Qaeda. And then in Yemen in the last few years has taken on a more active role than the original Al Qaeda.

CRUIKSHANK: That is bin Laden's legacy. And also there is this home-grown movement around the world. Home-grown cells not connected to Al Qaeda or any other group who want to launch attacks. That's bin Laden's legacy.

COOPER: We know that according to U.S. officials at least, the way bin Laden was gotten was through this courier who they had been tracking, trying to identify. Do we know how much connection there was between bin Laden and his number two?

CRUIKSHANK: They believe Zawahiri were even perhaps living close together I think we should watch out for that in the next few weeks.

COOPER: They have taken some items from the compound that may be priceless value.

CRUIKSHANK: And there are still fighters in the Afghan region coming back to launch attacks. And the threat may go up in the short term but in the long term, this is a very destabilize I have break through.

COOPER: Paul, I appreciate your time. Thank you for being with us.

There is a lot more to talk about ahead. We will expect to hear from House Speaker John Boehner at the top of the hour. Wolf this is a remarkable day. I was actually at home when I heard that the president was going to be giving a press conference and I was watching you as you broke the news. I think you had an inkling of what was going on but you didn't want to speculate?

BLITZER: I suspected what was going on but when I was driving to work just before 10:00 p.m. eastern, they said he would be in the White House at 10:30 p.m. eastern. As I was driving in I was trying to get ahold of sources, they were saying it had nothing to do with Gadhafi or Libya. It dealt with another part of the world.

And then they were telling me, you better get there, you better get there quickly, this is huge. You don't want to miss this. And I said, well, maybe they got Gadhafi. They said this is way, way bigger than that.

At which point my initial suspicion had nothing to do with Libya, it was bin Laden. But in our business you can't go on the air with just suspicions and say maybe this or maybe that. We waited for multiple sources to confirm it.

It's just one of those deals, Anderson, that you have a gut instinct and feeling of what is going on, and officials are being coy. But at 10:30 on a Sunday night in a surprise development, the president of the United States does not alert the network television pool cameras to get ready in the East Room for a ten-minute address unless it's something really, really huge. And obviously, Anderson, that is what happened.

COOPER: Yes. Well, you can hear all of the construction behind me here at ground zero right now. It continues to be a regular work day. Nearly ten years after 9/11. We're going to find out how far along the rebuilding effort has come. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, nearly ten years since bin Laden's attacks here at ground zero. The work continues and it's a significant time for the rebuilding effort. Janno Lieber is president of world trade properties joins us right now. Where is the construction stand at this point?

JANNO LIEBER, PRESIDENT, WORLD TRADE CENTER PROPERTIES, LLC: Anderson, construction is going 100 miles an hour. Across the street from here, you can see the memorial which is going to open on the tenth anniversary of the attacks of 9/11 just a few months from now. As part of that, there is a museum will open in 2012. And then all around us there are many more buildings under construction. That is 25 stories up and is going to open up in 2013.

One World Trade, a theme tower, is going to open in 2013. And, of course, directly to the right of that, Seven World Trade has been opened for five years and it's a great success.

COOPER: And then the foundations for two more structures are being built behind us.

LIEBER: That's right. There are two more big skyscrapers under construction below grade, but you can't see it. But also a huge new train station that is going to be the center of that.

COOPER: You've heard the frustration of New Yorkers and people around the world saying ten years on, why isn't there something that people can come to and visit?

LIEBER: Well, actually, we've sometimes shared that frustration. We felt that New Yorkers wanted and deserved to have the World Trade Center rebuilt. But it's a very complicated site. Right behind us there's a subway that runs through the site that has maintained service even as all of the construction is taking place around it. All of the utilities had to be maintained.

COOPER: When do you think it will all be completed?