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American Morning
How Bin Laden was Eliminate; Releasing Bin Laden Death Photo; Who Gets $25 million Bin Laden Bounty; Saving Cairo; Gas Average Could Top $4 This Week; Navy SEAL "Team Six"; U.S. Digging Through Data From Bin Laden; Study Wrong Amount Of Sleep Ages Brain
Aired May 03, 2011 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Ali Velshi. A lot going on this morning. Let's get you caught up.
After 10 years, the U.S. finally getting a look at Osama bin Laden's files. One official saying Navy SEALs who put a bullet in his head came back with the mother lode of intelligence.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Kiran Chetry. Fire on the water. The Army Corps of Engineers blasting a levee overnight. They're doing it to try to save towns upstream in the Midwest. More heavy rain is on the way today.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Christine Romans. Bad news is we're headed for $4 gas. Good news, probably won't get to $5. The summer forecast at the pump on this AMERICAN MORNING.
VELSHI: Good morning. It is Tuesday, May 3rd. Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING.
It's a good thing at CNN so we don't have to cram all the stuff into a morning show and not repeat it for the rest of the day because we have so much news. I wondered yesterday, could we have more? We do.
ROMANS: We do. And every hour there are new developments as we continue to get 24 hours --
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: -- 36 hours on from the killing of Osama bin Laden.
CHETRY: We also have a huge guest line. We're interviewing former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
VELSHI: Yes.
CHETRY: We're interviewing a Navy SEAL who's going to explain a little bit more about how this operation went down. So a lot to get to today.
VELSHI: And we'll take you right inside that compound and show you what it looks like.
CHETRY: Yes.
VELSHI: But up first, critical new developments this morning in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden's death.
U.S. officials say intelligence officers are now examining computer equipment and documents that were seized from bin Laden's mansion, including PCs, thumb drives and electronic equipment.
ROMANS: Officials say the cache they removed was a lot larger than they expected and if there's information about Al Qaeda, it's being examined right now by U.S. intelligence officers at a secret location in Afghanistan.
CHETRY: And we're also getting new details this morning about the actual compound where bin Laden spent his final hours. U.S. troops encountered two security gates, outer walls up to 18-feet high in some places and topped with barbed wire.
VELSHI: And it was Osama bin Laden's courier and most trusted aide, a Kuwaiti-born man named Sheikh Abu Ahmed, who led the U.S. troops right to his doorstep. A monitored phone call he made last year tipped off U.S. intelligence agents about bin Laden's compound.
ROMANS: But first, let's bring in our Barbara Starr, who's been leading our reporting on how the raid was planned and executed.
Barbara, what have you found out new this morning?
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, everyone. The first thing we want to show you is a new photograph, the aftermath of the raid, what U.S. forces left behind when one of their helicopters had a mechanical failure. We have a photo to show you of the wreckage there. You can see it as it's hanging over one of the fences. But everybody got out OK.
You're right. This was a surgical strike, 40 minutes on the ground, in and out, as fast as they could. The satellite imagery that the Pentagon released yesterday shows you how much this compound really wound up sticking out in the neighborhood. In the neighborhood of relatively small, modest homes, perhaps, this was a large compound.
When the U.S. forces went in, what happened? Well, they started moving through a number of structures on the compound. We're going to show you that schematic drawing again, and their real target was a center building, three stories tall. The upper floors also surrounded by a seven-foot privacy wall, if you will. And they fought their way through all of that.
In the last minutes of the raid, on the third floor, finding Osama bin Laden and other men, killing him in a firefight, killing three other men and a woman was killed in it as well. What the administration is saying now is that bin Laden was killed by a shot to the head and a shot to the chest.
ROMANS: Now, Barbara, they had planned for this raid and actually is it true, built sort of a mock where they had been training for this. So they covered across all those walls that they knew exactly where they were going?
STARR: Well, with that satellite imagery that they already had, knowing that was the target, they did practice. They could estimate what they were getting into. Now they didn't really know the details of the inside of the compound, the rooms, moving through this labyrinth that they encountered. But this is what special forces do. This is how -- it's so extraordinary. This is how it happens that a mission goes well. Practice, rehearsal, this is what they have learned to do over the years, of course, practice again and again and again. And they had contingency plans for any scenario so when that helicopter went bad on them, they simply got on one of the other helicopters and were able to fly away.
ROMANS: Barbara Starr, thank you, Barbara.
CHETRY: All right. Well now to the courier connection we've been talking about, this trusted Osama bin Laden ally who unknowingly led American forces right to the Al Qaeda chief's front door. The "Associated Press" is identifying him as a Kuwaiti-born man named Sheikh Abu Ahmed. A phone call Ahmed made last year to someone who was being monitored by American agents is what eventually helped the U.S. locate bin Laden's compound. The former CIA director, General Michael Hayden, told CNN's John King that his agency first learned of Ahmed's existence from detainees over nine years ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: They actually used some information that we had derived from some of our high-valued detainees that gave us some identifying data on the couriers and we watched from that point.
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Is this an interrogation or interrogations at Gitmo or is this the so-called black sites around the world?
HAYDEN: These would be CIA detainees.
KING: CIA detainees. So they're not at Gitmo?
HAYDEN: No, no.
KING: Can you say where they were?
HAYDEN: No.
KING: You can't say where they were?
HAYDEN: I cannot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Well, bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed, and Ahmed's brother were both killed in that raid that took out Osama bin Laden.
VELSHI: The White House is releasing new photos showing what may have been the most tense moments of Barack Obama's presidency so far. Here he is in the Situation Room on Sunday, alongside vice President Biden and his national security team, as they monitor the operation to capture Osama bin Laden. His decision to go with the more risky option of sending in Navy SEALs likely weighing heavy on his mind as you look at these pictures. Up until the moment he heard from the field, we've I.D.'d "Geronimo." "Geronimo" was the code name for the mission to get Osama bin Laden. He also, we're told, that the total U.S. casualties were zero.
Many of the questions were left asking this morning have to do with Pakistan and how the Al Qaeda leader was able to live in relative comfort literally in Pakistani's -- in the Pakistani military's backyard. This is new video of the compound posted on YouTube. It's said to dwarf other houses in the area, about eight times the size of the houses in the area. This morning, for the first time, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari confirmed that his forces had nothing to do with the operation, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. could not have done it without them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: Cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound in which he was hiding. You know, going forward, we are absolutely committed to continuing that cooperation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: The former Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, said the U.S. had no business invading Pakistani's air space.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PERVEZ MUSHARRAF, FORMER PRESIDENT OF PAKISTAN (via telephone): American troops coming across the border and taking action in one of our towns that is Abbottabad, is not acceptable to the people of Pakistan. It is a violation of our sovereignty. It would have been far better if Pakistani special services group had operated and conducted the mission.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: The Taliban immediately came out and threatened the U.S. and Pakistani leaders. President Zardari in a "Washington Post" op-ed said, "We will not be intimidated. Pakistan has never been and never will be the hotbed of fanaticism that is often described by the media."
ROMANS: Another question this morning, will we ever see pictures of the body? U.S. officials say there are photos of a dead Osama bin Laden and counterterror adviser John Brennan told reporters the White House has not ruled out releasing it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BRENNAN, DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER FOR HOMELAND SECURITY AND COUNTERTERRORISM: We are going to do everything we can to make sure that nobody has any basis to try to deny that we got Osama bin Laden. We want to make sure that not only American people, but the world understand exactly what happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: We will speak to White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan at 7:15 Eastern about Osama bin Laden's final moments and the fight against Al Qaeda.
CHETRY: Also you may remember they talked about this big bounty, this big reward.
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: $25 million.
CHETRY: If you had any information that led to the capture of Osama. Well, it says that it's not clear if anyone will actually get it. They say that Al Qaeda -- the Al Qaeda leader was, of course, one of the most wanted terrorists. He was on the FBI's list of most wanted terrorist. The new caption under the photo as we showed you first yesterday says now "deceased." But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggests that the bin Laden bounty could actually go unclaimed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: With respect to the reward, the rewards for justice program has, obviously, removed Osama bin Laden from its active list of most wanted suspects because of his death. Given the importance of confidentiality to the rewards for justice program, I cannot comment at all on whether anyone has been nominated for a reward in this or any other case.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Oh, we'll have to wait and see. Administration officials say that unidentified detainees provided key information for the bin Laden mission. Some reporting saying it was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed perhaps or al-Libi (ph) being held in Guantanamo. Clearly, they're not going to get $25 million reward.
VELSHI: And we're going to get a lot of discussion about that, where did this information come from and whether enhanced interrogation techniques helped lead to it.
ROMANS: That's right. That's right.
VELSHI: We've got some good interviews this morning with John Brennan, with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. So we'll make sure we ask them those questions.
President Obama is planning to go down to Ground Zero in New York City on Thursday to meet with families of the 9/11 victims. Last night at the White House, at a dinner for congressional leaders, the mere mention of the successful bin Laden mission brought everyone, including Republicans, to their feet.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Obviously, we've all had disagreements and differences in the past. I suspect we'll have them again in the future. But last night, as Americans learned that the United States had carried out an operation that resulted in the capture and death of Osama bin Laden, we --
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: The president urged the same kind of cooperative spirit when tackling major domestic issues.
ROMANS: The announcement that bin Laden is dead clinch President Obama's re-election in 2012? We want to know what you think. E-mail us at CNN.com/am. Give us a tweet @CNNAM or you can tell us on Facebook, Facebook.com/American Morning. I know it sounds premature but a lot of people are talking about it.
VELSHI: People are talking about it.
ROMANS: A lot of the -- you know, the pundit types are talking about the last week for the president and how one thing after another has been handled almost perfection. We have a long way to go until 2012.
CHETRY: Yes.
ROMANS: We want to know what you think about that.
CHETRY: We have a long way to go and gas prices, unfortunately, a long way to go up and jobs. Employment as well.
VELSHI: Jobs, yes.
CHETRY: All right. Well, the Army Corps of Engineers blasting a levee overnight. This was a controversial move. They're trying to basically save the small town of Cairo, Illinois, but at what cost? And more heavy rain is on the way. Our Rob Marciano is live on the scene. We're going to be checking in with him.
ROMANS: And speaking of gas prices.
VELSHI: Yes. We're very close now to $4 a gallon for gas. Again, it's psychological because you're already paying more. But when are we going to get that $4 mark and what's it going to mean when we get there? Is it going to change the way you behave?
ROMANS: Oh, and we told you about that huge hack attack at Sony. Some 75,000 people, gamers and anybody who uses the PlayStation system, having their information hacked. Guess what? It's even worse than we thought.
It's 12 minutes after the hour. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Flames lighting up the sky. I always look at this picture and think something is wrong. But it's actually -- that's why it looks dark because it's middle of the night. Flames lighting up the sky along the Mississippi River last night.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers blowing a hole into a strained flood levees. It's the first of three explosions, a desperate attempt to save nearby Cairo, Illinois, as record-breaking water levels threaten to wash out the small town.
CHETRY: That's right. The floodwaters actually climbed past 61 feet, a dangerous, obviously, number marker to hit there in Cairo. It's a dangerous spot stuck at the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. So, you see it there.
The blast happened at the Bird's Point Levee, that's right below Cairo. Officials hope it will ease pressure, divert some of the water into the floodway marked in red on the map. That's thousands of acres of Missouri floods. Are you seeing red here? I'm sorry.
VELSHI: I don't see.
ROMANS: I don't see the red, either.
But, you know, it's interesting because the Corps of Engineers operates an expansive system of locks, dams and levees down the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.
CHETRY: That's right.
ROMANS: And they're trying to control -- in the spring, Mother Nature every spring sort of tests all the ingenuity and engineering of these folks as they try to --
CHETRY: Right, because they were really trying to trick Mother Nature and people say you can't. I mean --
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: Rob Marciano is there. He joins us from Cairo, Illinois, this morning with more on what's going on. What's the situation? I mean, we're hearing those explosions.
What are they hoping to accomplish?
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, you know, here we are in Cairo, the water has gone down. So, that part of the operation has worked. But there are three explosions total that are going to be involved in this operation. The biggest one happened last night. We showed you that.
And, you know, we all love explosions and you think, why would we use, why would we explode a hole in a levee? I mean, we though, for the past 10 years we've been talking about levees that we're trying to shore up and -- along the Mississippi, especially and around New Orleans. Well, here, we've got the Ohio River, we've got the Mississippi River that come and merge right here at Cairo, Illinois. And then, not far from here, you've got the Tennessee watershed flowing into this area -- all of which received a record amounts of rain here in the past couple months and then you have the leftover snow melt from this past winter upstream which is not small potatoes as well.
Parts of Cairo yesterday were actually bubbling up from underneath. There was so much pressure on this town from the Ohio River. That holes were kind of bubbling up, the river was scouring out this town. That's why it was so imperative for them to take action last night.
Now, within the past hour, they should have blown another part of the levee a little bit farther downstream and then, later on today, they'll do a smaller explosion as well.
All the flood, about 130,000 acres of farmland. Now, you can bet those farmers don't want that to happen. Not only farmland, a very fertile farmland but about 100 homes as well.
So, Missouri is not happy about this. There's been a legal battle between Missouri and Illinois. But as it stands now, Illinois won or at least the Army Corps of Engineers won out on this and they got what they wanted.
Here's what Major General Michael Walsh had to say about that operation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAJOR GENERAL MICHAEL WALSH, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS: This is a story of the human dimension and, certainly, it's impacting lots of folks. As you fly up and down the river, you'll see a lot of people have already abandoned their houses and moved to higher ground. So, it is -- it is a heart-wrenching story. I've been involved with flooding for 10 years and it takes a long time to recover from something like this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MARCIANO: Not to mention the other towns downstream from this and some other towns upstream. This has relieved about, we're told, relieve about 20 percent of the amount of pressure that's been pressing against these sides of the river banks here, all the way up north of Paducah, south to the boot hill of Missouri and we're trying to prevents scenes like this where there is actually substantially better than it was this time last night.
Rain has stopped for now, but there's more rain in the forecast, guys, and all these rivers -- all this water is trying to flow downstream as well. So, it's not quite done yet until we get into summer.
Back to you guys.
VELSHI: All right. Rob, thanks very much. ROMANS: OK. Coming up, $4 gas. You know, where are you going to see that as we head into the summer? What states most likely to see $4 gas where will we be crossing that threshold. If you have been already, we're minding your business.
VELSHI: And if you are in the market for a car, there are major shortages of a very popular Honda model. We'll tell you about that and what you can do instead if you really need a car in a hurry.
We'll be right back. It's 20 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK. The national average price for a gallon of unleaded self-serve gasoline could hit $4 this week.
Carmen Wong Ulrich --
ROMANS: Some people are screaming at us because they're saying, I'm already paying $4.
CARMEN WONG ULRICH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We paid $4.42 in Connecticut this weekend, very expensive.
CHETRY: Yes. In Westminster, it was like $4.50.
ULRICH: Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, gas prices jumped over 3 cents this weekend and 1.5 cents since yesterday. The national average now at $3.97 a gallon.
Now, the chief analyst of the Oil Price Information Service, Tom Kloza, says we are absolutely hitting $4 a gallon nationally this week. Twelve states already there and Washington, D.C., as you can see on the map there -- Connecticut, Michigan and Rhode Island, for example, and closing in on $4 in another 11 states, Massachusetts and Maryland, New Hampshire, Nevada, et cetera, et cetera.
Now, in the past, we've seen gas peak just before Memorial Day weekend. This is the start of the summer driving season. And then the price drops, but we may see another rise before the Fourth of July weekend, some of that due to hurricane activity and drilling.
Now, the high prices are good for some folks. In Detroit, they are saying, yes. Auto analysts saying they are going to be good for car sales as more and more Americans are looking to buy more fuel- efficient vehicles. This is one trend that is not going away.
VELSHI: In fact, I would say, Carmen, that the last time we hit $3.50 and $4 and $4.11 really was a boost to electric car sales.
ULRICH: Well, it was the first time that the Ford F-150 truck dropped from number one bestselling vehicle to Toyota. And that's how they went over, because people are definitely - there are so many American models you can get with great, great fuel efficiency and so many American hybrids. So, there's a lot more to choose from.
VELSHI: All right. Very good, Carmen. Thank you.
ROMANS: All right. Coming up, we're going to take you back inside the compound where bin Laden spent his last moments and where a highly-precision team of American Special Forces ended his life. How the Navy mission really went down.
CHETRY: Also, with the bin Laden dead announcement, what does it mean for 2012? Did the president, perhaps, seal his victory? We want to know what you think. E-mail us, Facebook page, or tweet us. We'll read some of your comments on air a little bit later in the show.
VELSHI: It is 26 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: We're crossing the half hour.
We want to get you updated on our top stories.
They left with his body and a lot of actionable intelligence, perhaps -- hard drives, computer disks. U.S. officials now are going through what is being called the mother lode of intel that Navy SEALs were able to take away from bin Laden's compound in Pakistan. The White House is still deciding whether or not to release a photo of the dead bin Laden.
They blew the levee to save a town. New pictures this morning of what looks like a war zone in America's heartland. The Army Corps of Engineers blasting a levee on the Mississippi River last night to let the flooded river flow into nearby farmland. The Corps predicts this will lower the river between three and four feet, sparing the town of Cairo, Illinois, and other communities upstream.
Well, the South is still trying to recover after the worst tornado outbreak in American history. It is now official, NOAA estimates 312 twisters touched down in a 24-hour period that started last Wednesday. That is more than double the previous record of 148.
Jacqui Jeras is in the extreme weather center right now. She's talking about all of the flooding in the Midwest this morning.
And just these official numbers out of NOAA, was it just a fluke or do they have any reason why they had double the amount than they've ever seen before?
JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Oh, I mean this was historic event. You know, I don't know if this was necessarily a fluke or wave of the future.
Apart of it has to do with a lot has to do with more people being out there seeing some of these tornadoes as well. The big threat is changing now from rotation -- though, some isolated severe weather can be expected today -- to flooding. The rain has been so heavy. We've had the stationary front parked here which has brought in a tremendous amount of rain into the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys over the last two weeks. We're finally starting to see an end of this for you, from St. Louis, down towards Memphis. And it looks like we'll get a good couple days of break and we really, really need it.
Take a look at this map. This is showing you the rain in the last two weeks and all of this bright purple and into the white area, that's between 10 and 20 inches in a two-week period. That's more typical of what you would see in this area in five months. Just to put in perspective. So, that's just an incredible amount of rain.
Flooding is widespread and we're estimating that along the Mississippi River here, there's about 800 miles of flooding. This bright red area is where it is occurring. And this is having major impacts on homes, on businesses, on agriculture. A lot of these farmers aren't going to be able to plant at all this year.
And keep in mind this is a farm belt, which is also going to have major implications for navigation issues along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, too. The flooding is going to stay extremely high. Lots of crests are going to happen this week, guys.
However, we think the rivers will stay in flood here for at least a week beyond that. And we could be talking about almost a month before the river is back to normal as it crests and moves all the way down towards New Orleans eventually.
VELSHI: Jacqui, that's some interesting information, and the fact it affects navigable rivers. So, that could affect things that you buy or get shipped to you, and the fact that's a farm belt, some of the farmers won't be able to grow things. We've already seen food prices pushing up. So, we'll keep an eye on that, as well as the flooding.
Thank you, Jacqui.
I want to show you a closer look at this compound that we've been talking about, where the most wanted man was hiding for the past few years. Let's give you a sense of the picture, Pakistan, Afghanistan. This is the area in the middle the sort of govern/ungoverned area.
Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan. Now, let me just -- let me just go in there and we'll give you a 3D view of this compound. We've removed the houses from around it.
This compound was about eight times the size of the surrounding compounds, the homes really. They weren't compounds around it. This is in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
The front wall, let me just give you a sense of the gates first of all. There are two gates. This is the front of the operation. This is the back. There's a gate in the front and a gate leading to the back.
Now, I want to show you the walls because again, this is why we're calling it a compound. It had these walls that were fairly high. Up in the front, you had a 10-foot wall, in the back, you had a wall that was 12 feet and then 18 feet and 13 feet, and had barbed wire on top of it.
Now, this is the main building. Call it a mansion or a compound, whatever you want to call it. It had a seven-foot high protective wall on the upper balcony, presumably to protect Osama bin Laden, who by the way is 6'7" -- so a 7-foot wall would take care of that matter.
I want to give you a little more of a picture about these walls. That's the back wall. Let me show you what the front wall looks like.
So, again, it's a 10-foot wall, one entrance along the front with a gate and then another 10-foot wall and then I'll give you a quick slightly better look at that house and the privacy wall. So, that's where the action took place in there. A nice big high wall, so if he wanted to get outside he actually could without compromising his safety.
So, that's a look at the compound. We'll talk more about how those Navy SEALs got in there and what they did once they were in a special interview we've got coming up -- Christine.
ROMANS: All right, Ali.
The scene of the worst terror attack on U.S. soil looked like a V-Day celebration, hundreds of people have been gathering at New York City's Ground Zero to mark the death of Osama bin Laden. President Obama will join them on Thursday. He'll visit the site and meet with the families of 9/11 victims.
Our Jason Carroll has been talking to family members and he joins us live from the World Trade Center site.
Good morning, Jason.
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And good morning to you, Christine.
You know, this morning, I actually spoke to a Lee Ielpi. He lost his son on 9/11, his son Jonathan was a firefighter from Queens.
When I talked to Lee about what he was feeling, he said, you know, he's still trying to process everything that's happened. He said when we first heard about what happened with Osama bin Laden, he cried.
And certainly, there was some tears out here last night. Also, some celebrations -- for the second night in a row, people coming down here, wanting to take part, and celebratory sort of activity that's happening.
We saw a parade of bagpipers that made their way down Liberty Street, stopped in front of a firehouse that's located down here at World Trade Center. Many of those men were the first responders on that day and lost their lives. Those bagpipers stopped in front of the firehouse, played "Amazing Grace."
Also out here some of the families of the victims were here. I want you to listen to two women, both of those women lost their sons on 9/11, Christine -- both of their sons were fire fighters. I want you to listen to what they had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For us, it is, indeed, better late than never. I hope that Mr. Bin Laden had to experience the same type of brutal and prolonged death that nearly 3,000 people had to endure in the World Trade Center on 9/11. He will not live to inspire any more terrorists as a living person. And I must thank the United States military and the present administration and all those who assisted our country in apprehending Osama bin Laden.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was a coward. Osama bin Laden was a coward. The way he attacked innocent civilians was a cowardly act, and the way he was hiding out in caves in the years since, is a cowardly lifestyle.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARROLL: Quick point I wanted to talk about, Lee Ielpi for just another second, Christine. You know what he said this morning to me, he said, if he gets the chance to meet the president when he comes here on Thursday, what he'd like to do is bring him down here and show him a flowering pear tree located in the middle of the memorial. He said, to him, that was a symbol of hope and new beginning -- Christine.
ROMANS: All right. Jason Carroll at Ground Zero -- thanks, Jason.
CHETRY: Also new this morning, the search resuming for a Boy Scout troop that went missing on a camping trip in Arkansas over the weekend. They still have not found the six scouts and two troop leaders from Lafayette, Louisiana. Bad weather prevented police from conducting an aerial search. There's no cell service in the area. But, again, they're going to try to resume that search this morning.
VELSHI: We told you before the break, Honda is cutting production on some popular car models like the newly redesigned 2012 Civic because of a shortage of parts stemming from Japan's earthquake and tsunami. The shortage will also delay the introduction of a new Honda CRV. That is the best-selling SUV in the United States.
ROMANS: And computer hackers may have hit Sony a second time, getting personal information on 24.5 million user accounts.
VELSHI: Unbelievable.
ROMANS: That's on top of the people we were telling you about last week. The PlayStation network security breach was revealed last month in which personal data and perhaps credit card numbers from 77 million accounts were stolen. You add in 24.5 million more, you're talking about -- wow -- you're talking about 100 million people.
VELSHI: I think the nerd hackers were all sitting around and saying we need a round number. The 77 thing is not playing very well.
ROMANS: Every time you say nerd hackers, you get flamed. VELSHI: You know what? I do it specifically because of all of the nerd hackers who then tweet me and say, I can't believe you don't understand nerds, I bet you're not a gamer. I'm not a gamer.
ROMANS: And I'm sure Ali understands nerds.
CHETRY: You feel very strongly about this.
VELSHI: Yes, I do. I do. I lost a lot of information last week. So I'm mad at the nerd hackers.
CHETRY: So, you've changed your tune about the information -- about the -- you steal my information, just pay my credit cards, change your mind?
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: All right. Well, then you'll make some of your other Twitter followers happy.
All right. Well, coming up, we are going to be getting an inside look at what exactly it takes to conduct a mission, the likes of what we saw in Pakistan. The Navy SEALs, what they did in this operation that eventually nabbed Osama bin Laden. We're going to be speaking with Dick Couch, Navy SEAL expertise and his training and what was it like to be there -- coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Brand new information this morning on the weekend raid on Osama bin Laden's compound. Navy SEALs recovering computer drives and disks. Right now, the material is being examined at a secret location in Afghanistan.
CHETRY: Also late last night, officials released new details about how this mission unfolded. The raid was a coordinated effort with the CIA.
Joining us now from Los Angeles this morning is retired Navy SEAL Dick Couch. He knows what these guys do.
Dick, thanks so much for being with us this morning.
DICK COUCH, RETIRED NAVY SEAL: Happy to be with you. Thank you.
CHETRY: So, we're getting these new details the U.S. sent in a group of Navy SEALs called Team Six. As we understand, they were in and out, 38 minutes.
Who are these guys and why would the U.S. choose to send them in?
COUCH: Well, I think that Special Operations Command within the United States has lots of options and lots of teams of specialists that do various things. And I'm sure that theater commander, those in charge of this operation, chose the group they thought could do it best. And it seems like it fell to these SEALs to perform this operation.
VELSHI: They had -- you know, they were sort of given this job to do. In the least hospitable of circumstances, possibly operating in an environment where even Pakistani authorities may have tried to stop them had they known what they were up to. How do they sort of -- tell me the thinking? How do they spring into action, do what they have to do, and get out as effectively as they do?
COUCH: Well, I'm quite sure that this team of operators, Navy SEALs, I'm sure there were other Special Operations personnel in the assault force.
But they're very experienced. They've done this before. There's a lot of tactical muscle memory in these soldiers and sailors, and they've been fighting a war for about 10 years now.
So, this was very important raid, a signature raid. But they've done this many times before.
ROMANS: Mr. Couch, let me ask you, we saw this picture of all of the, sort of, principals in Washington watching from the Situation Room as details were emerging about what was happening. So, they're watching as this mission is under way. And meanwhile, you've got this team of Navy SEALs deep inside this compound, trying to -- trying to kill bin Laden.
We see the strain on the faces of the people in Washington, but the people in Pakistan, our guys, they are -- they're not nervous, right? They're going in. They've trained for this over and over again.
What are they thinking?
COUCH: Well, I think that taking it -- they all have a job to do, they're all focused on getting the mission done.
I'm sure that what's on that assault commander's mind is three things. Number one: accomplish my mission. Number two: get my men on target and off target safely. And number three: minimize collateral damage, don't kill anybody that doesn't need to be killed.
And I think under the circumstances what he was given, I think he conducted that operation very, very well.
CHETRY: You know, as if we've talked a lot about this whole notion of them prepping for this, perhaps, even going through run-throughs and a mockup.
The bottom line is, I know that these are the most -- some of the most prepared and ready fighting men out there, the navy SEALs, but at the same time, once you're dropped in there, you know, and you don't really know what you're experiencing, you don't really know where you may find Bin Laden as we understand it he was, perhaps, found on the third floor, how hard is it once you get there to really keep your wits about you and make sure that you're carrying this mission out the best you can? COUCH: Again, they've been through this again and again and again. They're highly trained. There a saying that the amateurs do it until they get it right, and the professionals do it until they can't get it wrong. So, they flowed through that building following their own procedures and tactics, on their communication links, doing what they had to do.
So, I think they were more reacting, a lot of situational awareness, and that they moved through there very quickly and very professionally, and, something they've done many times before.
VELSHI: Let me ask you this. You get in there, I assume, like the rest of us, there's some degree of adrenaline that drives you. You're pumped going in. When you say situational awareness, what do you mean? Does that mean that in their head they've got -- they've studied the building, they know what it's likely to look like, or they don't?
COUCH: I think that they know what they're looking for. I think situational awareness, they're behind a gun. They've got targets in front of them. They're probably operating at night. They've got their brother special operators on either side of them. They have to be aware their buddies are, where their target is, and as they move from room to room, it's a very choreographed event.
So, they're focused down on what they have to do, and there are procedures that they have to go through to make this happen to move through this compound. They're aware of the time it takes, how much time they have on target. So, a lot of this is very practiced, but they're professionals, and they've been doing this a long time. So, it -- it seems to work, but they are certainly adrenaline driven, I can assure you that.
VELSHI: No kidding. All right. Dick Couch, retired navy SEAL, great to talk to you. Thanks for giving us some insight into this. I think everybody is as much as we're not going to get all the detail because it wouldn't work if we all knew how these -- the navy SEALs work. Good to get some insight into it.
CHETRY: And the other fascinating thing, we talked about all of this with that one chopper that went down. I mean, they were thinking on the fly. I mean, as he said, you know, they practiced it until they got it right, but the other thing is that they were pulling out so quickly, yet at the same time, they managed to get what is being described as the mother load of Intel.
ROMANS: Leaving nothing behind, getting out of there, and leaving nothing behind very quickly.
VELSHI: Yes, impressive.
CHETRY: All right. Still to come --
ROMANS: All right. Still to come --
(LAUGHTER) CHETRY: With the --
VELSHI: That was like having headphones on.
CHETRY: I know. Sorry about that. In stereo, right?
The president announced that Bin Laden had been killed. Did he seal his 2012 victory? Is it too early to start on this conversation? They're having it. So, we want to know what you think. E-mail us. Go to our Facebook page or tweet us, and we're going to read some of your comments later in the show. It's 48 minutes past the hour.
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RAMON DOMINGUEZ, JOCKEY: Hi. I'm Ramon Dominguez. I'm a racehorse jockey. I have been able to participate in some of the biggest events like the Kentucky Derby and all the Triple Crown races. I remember at times when out of the whole week I'll be five days in five different states riding five different horses. I have to try to pack light. I find it very helpful to have a checklist of all the things that I have to take with me.
This is my upper body protection vest, then two of my saddles, and we have my helmet with the goggles. Here are my boots. Last but not least, my whip. I'm able to fit all of that in a carrier, believe it or not. You should take a racing form which is a paper that I use to handicap my race for the day, to take a magazine and couple books, a little granola.
When I first started flying a lot, this taken years out of my life because it was very stressful. Ironically, making a living riding racehorse is very dangerous. I'm off to my next race, and I'll see you on the track.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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VELSHI: A lot going on this morning. Here's what you need to know to start your day.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI (voice-over): U.S. officials are right now digging through computer equipment that was taken in the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. They're hoping to uncover loads of sensitive details that could be used to stop al Qaeda.
"Time" magazine's special issue on Bin Laden's death hits newsstands this week. It features a picture of Bin Laden with a red "X" over his face. "Time" ran similar covers following the deaths of Hitler in 1945, Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al- Zarqawi.
JPMorgan Chase ending its 4 and $5 ATM fees for non-customers. The charges were attest in two states. Turns out the chargers were enough to convince folks to trek a few extra blocks to their own banks.
News of Osama Bin Laden's death giving stocks a nice boost yesterday, but it soon faded. The Dow lost three points. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 also closed down.
And getting too much or too little sleep can age your brain. A study out of London found those who slept more or less than the recommended six to eight hours a night experienced a decrease in vocabulary and reasoning capacity.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI (on-camera): You're caught up on the day's headlines. AMERICAN MORNING back in 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Fifty-four minutes past the hour right now. A lot of people are talking about the political implications of the killing of Osama Bin Laden And how this affects President Obama. Some are even asking did it clench 2012 for him?
VELSHI: Well, a poll, let's just take a look at our latest approval poll. How is President Obama handling his job as president? This is, of course, prior to the capture of Osama Bin Laden. Forty-eight percent of the country was approving this, of his handling of the presidency, 50 percent disapproving. So, we sort of wanted to ask you what you thought about this. How much effect did the capture of Bin Laden actually have?
ROMANS: It's interesting because this sort of wiped out the whole Donald Trump thing from the headlines, too.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: So, the president comes out strong with a Bin Laden announcement, and in just a couple of days before, he had been at the White House correspondents association dinner where the chattering classes were all remarking about, you know, the Trump and --
CHETRY: And the birth certificate issue and on and on.
ROMANS: Right, exactly.
CHETRY: The other interesting thing is there's pretty much been bipartisan praise for how this operation went down. Of course, it's only been three days, that could change, but for now, some of the things you guys are saying, interesting, on our Twitter, AJMC 1967 writes "2012 election ended Sunday night." Seeming to allude to the fact that they think that Obama is a shoo-in because of the mission to --
ROMANS: Would he already have voted for Obama? That's the question.
VELSHI: Well, I have a couple of comments from people who said that they weren't going to -- I got somebody. Jude 718 says, "I was going to vote for him again even before Osama Bin Laden's death. He got a huge mess dumped on his lap when he took over." But I got another one from somebody else who said, "I wasn't going to and this will make me actually change my mind and vote for - "
ROMANS: It's a long way until 2012, though.
CHETRY: I know. And this is another interesting one. Fanny Corali (ph) brings up a recent history. She said, "I remember desert storm vis-a-vis George H.W. Bush's election. So, you can lose after huge successes. I bet this administration remembers that as well."
ROMANS: We want to know what you think. It's been a big week.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: No question it's been a big week for this president. E-mail us at CNN.com/AM. Give us a tweet @CNNAM. You can also tell us on Facebook, facebook.com/americanmorning.
VELSHI: OK. Coming up in the next hour, they are called a special breed of warriors for a reason. Fascinating new details about the navy SEAL operation that ended the hunt for Osama Bin Laden with a bullet in his head.
CHETRY: Also, he was inside the situation room as the president of the United States got the news and said that the minutes passed like days. We're going to ask counterterror adviser, John Brennan, how the war on terror changes now after the death of OBL. Fifty-six minutes past the hour.
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