President Obama: your statement to not release the photos—your call, your decision.
Now, how soon will you remove the troops from Iraq and Afghanistan?
In 2009, you committed to begin bringing troops home from Afghanistan this July, 2011.
Will you be a man of your word, President Obama?
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Obama Says He Won’t Release Photos of Bin Laden
By HELENE COOPER and MARK LANDLER
Published: May 4, 2011
WASHINGTON — President Obama decided not to release graphic photographs of Osama bin Laden’s corpse because he was persuaded by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the release of the images would pose a national security risk, White House officials said on Wednesday.
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Doug Mills/The New York Times
Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, discussed the president’s decision on Wednesday.
“There is no doubt that we killed Osama bin Laden,” Mr. Obama said in an interview with the CBS News program “60 Minutes,” according to an excerpt of an interview that was read to reporters by Jay Carney, the White House press secretary. “We don’t need to spike the football.”
After intense discussions with his national security team, Mr. Obama decided that the photos were too graphic and could further enflame Bin Laden’s followers, Mr. Carney said, but would not change the minds of skeptics. Mr. Obama indicated in the interview that gloating by releasing the photos “is not who we are,” Mr. Carney said.
Part of the interview will be broadcast on CBS’s evening news program Wednesday, the network said.
The debate over whether to release photos of Bin Laden had consumed the White House over the last two days. Some senior officials said the release of photos was inevitable. On Tuesday, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, said he did not think “there was any question that ultimately a photograph would be presented to the public.”
But officials at the Pentagon and State Department expressed qualms about releasing gruesome photos of Bin Laden’s bloodied corpse, and when the decision was made on Wednesday, “the majority of opinions” within the administration favored withholding the photos, Mr. Carney said.
Some argued that no matter what the photos showed, they would not silence those who doubt that Bin Laden was killed in the American raid on a fortified house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, early on Monday, which the administration says is established beyond question. “The fact is, you will not see Osama bin Laden walking this earth again,” Mr. Obama said in the interview, according to the transcript.
Mr. Carney added at the briefing that the administration felt no need to release the photos to establish that Bin Laden was dead, and that the president had decided it was not “necessary or prudent” to release them.
Some lawmakers expressed similar views, saying that releasing the photos would serve little purpose and could endanger American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Imagine how the American people would react if Al Qaeda killed one of our troops or military leaders, and put photos of the body on the Internet,” said Representative Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. “Osama bin Laden is not a trophy. He is dead, and let’s now focus on continuing the fight until Al Qaeda has been eliminated.”
The White House said that Mr. Obama would take part on Thursday in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Sept. 11 memorial in lower Manhattan. He is also scheduled to meet with relatives of the victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks, but he will not make a speech. The White House invited former president George W. Bush to accompany Mr. Obama in New York, but Mr. Bush declined, his spokesman said.
The plans came as further details emerged about the raid on Bin Laden’s fortified house in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Administration officials said that after members of the Navy Seals shot and killed Bin Laden, they found that he had money — 500 euros (about $746) — and two telephone numbers sewn into his robes. That suggested that Bin Laden had an escape plan, which he was not able to carry out when American helicopters landed in the compound.
Administration officials reiterated that Bin Laden had not tried to surrender in the final moments of his life, and that that justified the use of lethal force by the Navy Seals. On Wednesday, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. laid out a broader justification, citing Bin Laden’s role as the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.
“It was justified as an act of national self-defense,” Mr. Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “If he had surrendered, attempted to surrender, I think we should obviously have accepted that. But there was no indication that he wanted to do that and therefore his killing was appropriate.”
Ann
BEAUTIFUL, ALSO, ARE THE SOULS OF MY BLACK SISTERS 