But Robert O'Neill said
the value of sharing the details of the mission for the families of the
September 11, 2001, victims and military veterans killed in the ensuing
wars makes that risk worthwhile.
"I think I did this in a
way that doesn't violate any tactics or any rules," he said in an
interview on CNN's "The Lead" with Jake Tapper.
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Being prosecuted, he said, "does concern me, and if it comes up, I'll address it."
In his most extensive
live television interview to date, O'Neill said he realized the power of
his story while speaking with a group that included about 20 families
of victims of the September 11 attacks. He said it was the first time
he'd really spoken about the mission, and that men and women cried and
told him "it was closure for them."
At that moment, he said,
he realized the importance of sharing what he could -- and that he
needed to find a way to do so "with respect for the tactics, for the
safety of our troops and for the Department of Defense."
Responding to criticisms
from former administration officials and current servicemembers that he
shouldn't be talking publicly, O'Neill said, "I think it's important
historically for this to get out there."
"We were the end of a
long, long time of grieving," he said. "We were everybody on that
mission. You know, we were the Port Authority, the police department,
the NYPD, the FDNY, we were the American people, the 9/11 families, and
we were able to go there -- and just that I was able to be a part of
that is just the greatest honor that's ever been asked of me."
O'Neill described many of the details of the mission -- and his preparation beforehand.
He said he believed
there was "about a 90 percent chance that we weren't going to come
back." Among the possible threats: Pakistan's military, unaware of the
mission, could shoot the two helicopters down. Bin Laden's house could
be wired with explosives. Others in the house could be wearing suicide
vests.
"The house getting blown
up, possibly getting shot down, suicide bombers, and then possibly
running out of gas was a concern," he said. "The chances of us not
coming back were a lot greater than the chances we were coming back."
He said he called his
family members beforehand -- not offering details on what he was doing,
but knowing that they'd soon find out no matter how the mission ended.
He also wrote letters to his young children, only to be delivered if he
didn't survive at a later date when, for instance, he wasn't there for
their weddings.
After the mission
started, O'Neill described landing outside bin Laden's compound on the
second of two helicopters, after the first one had crash-landed. He said
he was the eighth SEAL in line as they moved from the compound's first
floor to its second.
On that floor, six ahead
of him split off to take out bin Laden's son, clear other rooms and
identify potential threats. He was now second in line headed to the
third floor, where they expected to find bin Laden.
As the group reached the
third floor, he said, the SEAL in front of him dove on top of an
"unknown" person -- it turned out to be a woman -- to absorb what they
feared could be a blast from a suicide vest. He said he thought "let's
get this over with" as he entered the room expecting to be blown up by
bin Laden.
That's when O'Neill identified the al Qaeda mastermind.
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"I shot him twice in the head, he fell on the floor," he said. "I shot him one more time, and I killed him."
The magnitude of what
he'd done didn't register immediately. O'Neill first worried about
eliminating other potential threats -- moving a woman and child out of
the way, and then clearing the room.
"It wasn't until the
room was cleared and there were more SEALs in the room that it kind of
hit me. I had a moment of pause," he said.
A friend put his hand on O'Neill's shoulder.
"I said, 'Hey, what do we do now?'" O'Neill said. "He said, 'Now we go find the computers.' I said, 'OK, I'm back.'"
The 90-minute flight
back to the U.S. air base in Afghanistan was stressful, too, as the
SEALs counted down the time until they exited Pakistan's airspace.
Then, they could exhale.
One SEAL laid next to bin Laden's body to measure his height -- part of
confirming his identity. The group hadn't brought a tape measure.
Later, O'Neill sat feet
from bin Laden's body, eating a breakfast sandwich and watching a
flat-screen television, while watching President Barack Obama announce
to the world that the United States had killed bin Laden.
"I think," he told CNN, "I was part of a team full of heroes."
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