The “minutes 
passed like days” inside the White House situation room Sunday as President Obama and his national security team watched the 40-minute operation unfold that led to the death of Osama bin Laden in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, John Brennan, Obama’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, told reporters Monday. “It was probably one of the most anxiety-filled periods of time,” he said during a White House briefing. Brennan said the President and his team had “real-time” access to the events happening on the ground during the Navy SEAL attack on the compound, located roughly 35 miles north of Pakistan’s capital city Islamabad. Bin Laden, the long-elusive terrorist leader whose al Qaeda group had carried out the 9/11 attacks, was killed during a firefight in the latter part of the operation. For more, continue to Osama bin Laden is Dead
The defense intelligence community has tried three times in the past decade to build a “common intelligence picture”—a single data stream providing the information that commanders need to make decisions about the battlefield. The first two attempts failed. But officials say things are different today.