In the bowels of the West Wing, there's a highly secure space where former President Barack Obama sat with his top advisers and watched in real time as U.S. special forces raided a compound in Pakistan and killed Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader who planned the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
The area is known as the Situation Room, and over the past year, it has been overhauled and upgraded with more than $50 million in improvements to security and capabilities, and is ready to reopen for operations.
Literally everything was torn out from the conference room, the command center called the "watch floor" that supports it, and smaller rooms around them. The renovation extended five feet underneath the space, said Marc Gustafson, senior director for the White House Situation Room.
Not many people have seen the new space, but Gustafson said people who have got a glimpse have said, "'Wow, this looks like the movies now.'"
Gustafson led a group of reporters on a rare tour of the space before it reopened. They were required to leave their phones, smartwatches and even fitness tracking devices outside.
Here's how the Situation Room looked before
The space was last updated more than 15 years ago, during the George W. Bush administration, and had been showing its age from "significant wear and tear," Gustafson said.
It now features mahogany wood paneling alongside flat-screen monitors that can securely connect to any video feed or intelligence source the president and his team might need. The room feels both modern and traditional, which was the goal. It was "a tricky balance," said Gustafson, who helped coordinate the renovations.
The precise space where Obama and his advisers sat is gone, replaced with two smaller breakout rooms where top officials can make calls and prepare their thoughts ahead of a meeting with the president.
Artifacts from the space will be shared with the Obama presidential library, and a glass phone booth was saved for a future Biden presidential library.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
