O’Neill appeared on US television last night to speak about the mission to capture the al Qaeda leader responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks in 2003
Watch Rob O'Neill speaking about the raid on Osama's lair:
The Navy SEAL who claims he killed Osama bin Laden has spoken for the first time to reveal the US Government had no intention of capturing the world’s most wanted man alive.
Robert O’Neill appeared on US television last night to speak about the mission to capture the al Qaeda leader responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks in 2003.
Despite facing a huge backlash from former colleagues for breaking the code of silence the 38-year-old provided a first hand account of the details leading to the death of bin Laden in May 2011.
“The more we trained on it the more we realised this is going to be a one-way mission,” O'Neill said as he appeared on ‘The Man who killed Osama bin Laden’.
“We’re going to go and we’re not going to come back,.
“We’re going to die when the house blows up, we’re going to die when he blows up, or we’re going to be there too long, we get arrested by the Pakistanis, and we’re going to spend the rest of our lives in a Pakistan prison.”
O'Neill said CIA agents told the team only bits of information about the raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottobad, Pakistan beforehand, including "a few names that didn't make sense.''
But he said he and his team figured out who the target was before they were given their final orders.
Meet the Navy Seal who 'killed Osama bin Laden':
”A few of us were talking a couple days later about this person, this person why would they be there,” he said.
“It’s bin Laden. They found him. We're going to go get him."
Despite believing they were certain to die in the mission, O’Neill said it did not deter them from wanting to go and take out bin Laden.
"This is a good way to go, and it's worth it because we're we're going to kill him,'' he said.
"We really wanted to do this,'' he said.
"We wanted it. Bad. This is why we're here. We're at war because of this guy, and now we're going to go get him."
He then wrote a letter to his children giving them advice about how to live their lives without him before making what he believed would be his final ever call to his father back home in Butte, Montana.
On the two part programme, shown on Veterans Day in the US, O'Neill tells how he got the fatal kill shot in first and ended the life of the terror lord.
During last night’s first hour-long special much was dedicated to the training he underwent to become part of the SEAL Team 6, America most elite unit and taking part in the rescue of Captain Richards Phillips taken hostage by Somali pirates.
He also said the mission was carried on behalf of the New York Fire Department, NYPD and all the American people after then President George W Bush said on just hours of the attacks which killed 2,977 victims, that those responsible would receive justice.
On tonight’s he talks how throughout his military training he had been trained to fire two shots to the head during missions - known by SEALs as a double tap.
Last week it was revealed he had previously told families of 9/11 victims he had actually fired a third round in bin Laden’s skull saying there “no harm in putting one more bullet in him.”
He was alleged to have made the comments while attending a secret meeting at the the new memorial museum at the World Trade Centre site in July.
O’Neill told guests he had no idea who ‘The Target’ was before the mission but described in detail how once on the ground entered the building, before walking upstairs and finding the world's most wanted man.
Sources close to the veteran say his decision to go public was prompted after he lost some of his military benefits by quitting the SEALs four years early than then the full 20 years of service.
His father Tom responded saying: "What are you supposed to do when you come out of the military after such service become a greeter at Walmart?"
However after deciding to go public O’Neill is now being shunned by his former colleagues who have always maintained a strict code of secrecy.
Footage of aftermath of raid on Bin Laden's hideout:
The head of the SEALs has already hit out saying that any former member of the elite unit seeking “public notoriety and financial gain” from sharing secret operations is a betrayal of the unit's values.
Furious Rear Admiral Brian Losey said in an open letter to all SEALs that a critical part of the their ethos is, “I do not advertise the nature of my work, nor seek recognition for my actions.”
He even threatened to talk legal action against any SEAL who disclosed classified information and puts families or future operations at risk.
During O’Neill's service he was deployed on more than a dozen tours of duty in active combat, in four different war zones, including Iraq and Afghanistan.
He undertook more than 400 separate combat missions rising to become one of the most decorated men in the SEALs history.
In total he was honoured 52 times before leaving as senior chief petty officer.
His decorations include two Silver Stars - the military’s third highest honour, four Bronze Stars with Valour, three Presidential Unit citations, Joint Service Commendation Medal with Valour, and two Navy/Marine Corps Commendations with Valour.
He has been portrayed in Hollywood several times after taking part in some of America’s most high profile missions as part of SEAL team six.
The band-of-brothers mission have been made in to films including Lone Survivor, Captain Phillips and Zero Dark Thirty.
O'Neill was the lead man on the Maersk Alabama, the ship taken over by Somali pirates, whose rescue turned into the Oscar-winning movie starring Tom Hanks.
He also helped save colleague Marcus Luttrell, the 'Lone Survivor' who lived to tell of a failed mission in Afghanistan to capture a Taliban leader and what was later made in to a movie.
The SEALs - which stands for Sea, Air, Land Teams - are the US Navy's principal special operations force and a part of the Naval Special Warfare Command and United States Special Operations Command.
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