The films have recreated it again and again, although there are few photos of one of the most restricted places in the world: the Situation Room, the White House crisis room, in the basement of the West Wing of the presidential palace headquarters. . It has been the setting for history since President John F. Kennedy created it in 1961 after landing at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. From his offices, Barack Obama – along with then Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, among others – followed the capture and killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in 2011. Now Joe Biden’s administration has committed 50 million dollars (about 47 million euros at the current exchange rate) for the modernization and modernization of the facility, which is actually a complex of just over 500 square meters with several offices, offices and meeting rooms.
The most popular photo from these offices is the one in which Hillary Clinton puts her hand to her mouth while Obama, Biden and a dozen collaborators solemnly watch the special forces operation in Pakistan in the house where Bin was hiding. Loaded. This was not the main room of the complex, which explains why Obama did not lead the meeting but sat off to the side, casually dressed. At this point, the main conference room did not have the appropriate technology to view the operation live. As a result of the reform, the room in this photo no longer exists and its contents were sent to Obama’s presidential library.
Then-Vice President of the United States Barack Obama with then-Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the operation to capture and kill Osama Bin Laden in May 2011. Pete Souza (The White House)
The renovation added more advanced technology and modern furniture to the space. The work took a year. The White House organized a limited visit attended by a small number of American media outlets and released some images. Several journalists who have entered the rooms agree that “it smells like a new car.”
Images provided by the White House of the main room, named JFK in tribute to Kennedy, show a wooden briefing table, much more spacious than the previous one, with six large, plush black leather seats on each side, apart from the corresponding presidential seats the top. Behind them, in the second row, are a dozen more chairs attached to the wall on each side of the room. Large flat screens are appreciated. There is LED lighting that allows you to change the intensity and color of the light.
One of the areas of the renovated White House crisis room complex. THE WHITE HOUSE (The White House via Portal)
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There are other smaller meeting rooms in the same style and a surveillance room full of screens with agents and officials from various security, espionage and secret services sitting at the tables. Transparent glass offices become opaque at the push of a button. Workers dug five feet underground to create more space and install cutting-edge technology that would allow White House officials to collect intelligence information from various agencies with just a few keystrokes and full security guarantees.
The last major renovation of the crisis room took place in 2006, but parts of the state-of-the-art servers, computers and screens at the time were now somewhat outdated. This renovation improved communications with Air Force One, the presidential aircraft, eliminated fax machines, replaced old televisions with plasma televisions, and also eliminated a small kitchen to serve the people who worked there. There are still many landline connections as cell phone use is still not allowed for security reasons.
Inside the White House, the location is known as the “Whizzer,” derived from the complex’s acronym: WHSR, for White House Situation Room.
President Joe Biden cuts the ribbon on the renovated White House Crisis Room. THE WHITE HOUSE (The White House via Portal)
President Joe Biden gave a tour of the inauguration ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday. He then received an intelligence briefing at the facility, Marc Gustafson, head of the crisis team, told reporters. “He loved it, he thought the update was fantastic,” Gustafson said in statements collected by the AP.
According to the AP, Gustafson said visitors had previously commented that the space did not reflect Hollywood’s grand idea of space. And he added that instead they now declare: “This looks like a movie.”
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