My Trip To Osama Bin Laden’s House

ABC’s Martha Raddatz — just back from Afghanistan: I’ve been invited to see some rather interesting places in my travels around the world, but this one topped them all. "Would you like to see Osama bin Laden’s house?" It was not an offer I could imagine turning down. The trip would have to be swift and stealthy.  The man who took us there is Dave Warner, a brilliant, energetic "double doc" —an MD and PhD in neuroscience who is doing incredible humanitarian work in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Jalalabad also just happens to be where bin Laden lived with his three wives in 1996, when Al Qaeda was laying down roots in Afghanistan.  When Dave was first asked by some locals if he wanted to see the house, he jokingly answered, "Not if he is home!" No chance of that on our visit. But it was still a dangerous neighborhood for Americans to be lingering, and Dave and his security team told us the visit would have to be a quick one. Richard Coolidge (my producer and photographer) and I sat in the back seat of our four-wheel-drive vehicle, both of us with cameras ready. The drive was quiet, and eerie. There was no one on the dusty street outside the compound. Our driver stopped for a moment; we got out to take a few pictures. It was clear that a missile had struck the center of the compound — "in late 2001," said Dave. A lot of missiles rained down on this area after 9-11, yet Dave said this was the only place that had not been repaired. We hadn’t been out of the car for thirty seconds when Dave and the security team told us to get back in the car quickly.  "We got a call," Dave shouted. "We have to go now, now, now!" We wasted no time hopping back in the car and driving away. But I think of that compound often. A decade after Bin Laden left, it still felt haunted by the man who lived there. The terrorist who remains very much alive.