Situation Room (photograph)

The photograph shows U.S. president Barack Obama and his national security team in the White House Situation Room receiving live updates from Operation Neptune Spear, which led to the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Air Force Brigadier General Brad Webb was sitting at the table monitoring the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound when Michael Leiter, then director of the United States National Counterterrorism Center, entered the room.

President Obama later said he believed the picture was taken about the time the room's occupants were informed or realized that one of the raid's helicopters had crashed.

[4]The following people are pictured, from left to right: The photograph received much publicity after the news of Bin Laden's death was announced.

Particularly of note was Clinton's facial expression, holding her right hand over her mouth in apparent anxiety over the outcome of the raid.

Meredith College sociology professor Lori Brown said it is significant, however, that Obama is neither in the center of the room nor in the tallest chair.

[10] Alexis Madrigal, a senior editor at The Atlantic, said that Tomason "appeared to be an outlier in a room filled with the administration's heaviest hitters."

Tommy Vietor, a United States National Security Council spokesperson, said that there were other young staffers in the room, but Tomason was the only one in the photograph.

Madrigal added "The luck of the camera's gaze means that history will be able to place Tomason at a decisive moment in the war on terrorism, but not her colleagues.

[12] Robert Cardillo, deputy director of national intelligence, was cropped from the photo and was seated to the right of Vice President Biden.

[13] Di Tzeitung (The Journal), a Satmar Hasidic newspaper from Brooklyn, edited the image to remove Clinton and Tomason due to its policy of not running photographs with women because of modesty laws.

[14] The Washington Post issued a correction, noting that Di Tzeitung had not violated any White House copyright because the photograph was "in the public domain from the moment of inception".

[19] The photograph was used satirically on the cover of the May 13, 2011 issue of Private Eye magazine, suggesting that the people present were witnessing a massacre of the Liberal Democrats party in British local elections.