Tomorrow marks the one month anniversary of President Barack Obama’s appearance before the nation to announce that “the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden.” According to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, on the evening of the raid, senior officials in the White House situation room “all agreed that we would not release any operational details from the effort to take out bin Laden. That all fell apart on Monday—the next day.” Total secrecy, however, was never possible given the historic importance of the story, insatiable demand for news coverage, and willingness of unnamed U.S. government sources to leak. Read more »