National Security Adviser Tom Donilon says Obama got `` divided counsel '' on raid . By Sunday evening -- which was early Monday morning in Pakistan -- the 38-minute mission was over , the 25-strong U.S. team having flown out of the country along with bin Laden 's dead body . Relying on a `` circumstantial case , '' the president gave the go-ahead the next morning . Donilon says the amount of intel gathered is `` about the size of a college library '' and that it was not enough to justify an operation in which Navy SEALs killed bin Laden without killing any civilians or harming U.S. interests overseas. "
National Security Adviser Tom Donilon says Obama got `` divided counsel '' on raid . Relying on a `` circumstantial case , '' the president gave the go-ahead the next morning . Donilon says the amount of intel gathered is `` about the size of a college library '' and that it was not enough to justify an operation in which Navy SEALs killed bin Laden without killing any civilians or harming U.S. interests overseas. "