Obama says he OKd bin Laden raid despite warnings

President Obama faced sharply divided counsel and, to his mind, barely better-than-even odds of success when he ordered the May 1 commando raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the president said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

Obama acknowledged having only circumstantial evidence placing bin Laden at the Abbottabad compound in Pakistan. There was not a single photograph or confirmed sighting of the man, he said, and he worried the Navy SEALs would find only a "prince from Dubai" instead of the terrorist leader responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"At the end of the day, this was still a 55-45 situation," Obama told CBS' "60 Minutes" in his first broadcast interview since bin Laden's death. "Had he not been there, then there would have been some significant consequences."

Obama said he weighed the risks and judged that he should proceed with what was, by all accounts, the most promising opportunity to capture or kill bin Laden in nearly a decade. In doing so, he rejected the advice of a substantial number of his national security advisers, who worried that the plan to send ground troops deep into Pakistan was too risky, he said.

Earlier Sunday, the White House's chief security officer, Thomas Donilon, said there was no evidence showing that Pakistan's intelligence, military or political establishment knew of bin Laden's hideout in the army garrison town 35 miles from the capital.

The president acknowledged surprise at learning that bin Laden had managed to remain hidden in Pakistan since 2005 without being discovered by the country's security officials. He said White House officials believe there had to have been "some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan," though it was unclear who or what that support network was.

Donilon said Pakistan remains a critical partner in battling al Qaeda. But he acknowledged that Pakistani officials have not granted Americans access to critical information gathered since the raid or allowed interviews with bin Laden's three widows who are now in Pakistan's custody.

"We've asked for access, obviously," Donilon said on ABC's "This Week with Christiane Amanpour," one of four television news shows he visited Sunday.

A Pakistani intelligence official said Sunday that his government needed permission from the wives' home countries before Pakistan could allow U.S. officials to question them. One of the wives is from Yemen; the official said he did not know the other wives' nationalities.