FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. -- Buoyant after meeting with the assault force that killed the world's most wanted terrorist, President Barack Obama declared to a hangar full of cheering soldiers Friday that Osama bin Laden's death is proof the U.S. is making progress in Afghanistan and against the global militant group.
"We have cut off their head," Obama said, "and we will ultimately defeat them."
The declaration drew thunderous applause from the 2,300 soldiers, most from the 101st Airborne Division based at Fort Campbell, who gathered to hear the president and pay tribute to comrades in the raid.
Obama, meeting with the special operations teams, presented them with the highest honor that can be given to a unit, a Presidential Unit Citation, in recognition of their achievement.
Obama said he was sticking with his plan to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan this summer, gradually and in consultation with military leaders. But he seemed to shrug off questions about whether U.S. troops need to remain there.
"Our strategy is working and there is no greater evidence of that than justice finally being delivered to Osama bin Laden," Obama said during his address at Fort Campbell.
The meeting with the special operations force was carefully shielded from public view. Adm. William H. McRaven, who ran the bin Laden operation for the military's Joint Special Operations Command, met Obama at Fort Campbell's airfield in the afternoon, and the two then went into a closed-door meeting with a group the White House described as "the full assault force that carried out the operation."
Also at the meeting with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden was the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment -- a helicopter team known as the "Night Stalkers" -- and the 5th Special Forces Group. Both are based at Fort Campbell.
The special operations forces did not attend Obama's address, officials said, but were spirited quietly off the base.
Despite the secrecy, Obama's appearance appeared to be his most celebratory public moment yet in the wake of this week's raid.
Obama kept his visit with survivors and victims of the Sept. 11 attacks private when he went to ground zero in New York a day earlier. And in a Friday visit to a plant in Indianapolis, Obama spoke exclusively about economic issues.
But Obama and Biden were clearly accepting credit for bin Laden's long-awaited capture and death, in a victory lap through the "Night Stalkers'" home base.
In a recorded interview to air Sunday on "60 Minutes," Obama said that he wanted to resist the urge to "spike the football" in celebration of the bin Laden operation.
Those strictures were loosened on Friday. In his introductory speech, Biden at one point pumped his fist and praised Obama's decision to order that the compound be raided.
The Night Stalkers were the regiment that piloted the helicopter mission in Somalia memorialized in the film "Black Hawk Down," according to base public affairs officer Bob Jenkins.
In Sunday's raid, the helicopter pilots averted tragedy. Despite one of the helicopters losing lift, they managed to lower the SEALs into the compound housing bin Laden while they called for backup.
"They're America's quiet professionals," Obama said, calling it one of the greatest military operations in U.S. history. "Their success demands secrecy ... When I gave the order, they were ready."
By CHRISTI PARSONS
Tribune Washington Bureau