Why we wont release Osama's photos- Obama

The United States will not release the picture of the late Osama bin Laden’s body, President Barack Obama said yesterday.




He spoke during an interview with CBS’ "60 Minutes".

Obama was persuaded by Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that releasing the images would pose a national security risk, White House officials said.
"We don’t trot this stuff out as trophies. There is no doubt that we killed Osama bin Laden," Mr. Obama said in an interview with the CBS News programme, according to a transcript read to reporters by White House press secretary Jay Carney. "We don’t need to spike the football," he also quoted the US President as saying.

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, according to Mr. Carney, 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.

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, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Leon 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 body, and when the decision was made on Wednesday, "the majority of opinions" within the administration favoured 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."

Obama will take part in today’s 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 Goerge W. Bush to accompany Mr. Obama in New York, but Mr. Bush declined, his spokesman said.

Emerging details revealed 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.

The United States also said yesterday that killing the al Qaeda leader was an act of national self-defence, countering allegations the raid by U.S. commandos on his Pakistani hide-out was illegal.
US Attorney General Eric Holder said bin Laden was a legitimate military target and he had made no attempt to surrender to the American forces that stormed his fortified compound.

"It was justified as an act of national self-defence," Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee, citing bin Laden’s admission of being involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

It was lawful to target bin Laden because he was the enemy commander in the field and the operation was conducted in a way that was consistent with U.S. laws and values, he said, adding that it was a "kill or capture mission."

"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," he said.
U.S. acknowledgment on Tuesday that bin Laden was unarmed when shot dead had raised accusations Washington had violated international law. Exact circumstances of his death remained unclear and could yet fuel controversy, especially in the Muslim world.

As the U.S. continued to be under pressure to release photos it had taken of bin Laden’s body to the public, one Senator said she had seen one picture showing his face.
"I have seen one of them," Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte said, adding she believed it confirmed his identity.

Pakistan faced national embarrassment, a leading Islamabad newspaper said, in explaining how the world’s most-wanted man was able to live for years in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, just north of the capital.
Pakistan blamed worldwide intelligence lapses for a failure to detect bin Laden, while Washington worked to establish whether its ally had sheltered the al Qaeda leader, which Islamabad vehemently denies.

"There is an intelligence failure of the whole world, not just Pakistan alone," Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told reporters in Paris. "(If there are) ... lapses from the Pakistan side, that means there are lapses from the whole world.

The revelation that bin Laden was unarmed contradicted an earlier U.S. account that he had participated in a firefight with the helicopter-borne American commandos. Al Arabiya television went further, suggesting the architect of the 9/11 attacks was first taken prisoner and then shot.
"A security source in the Pakistani security quoted the daughter of Osama bin Laden that the leader of al Qaeda was not killed inside his house, but had been arrested and was killed later," the Arabic television station said.

Pakistan has welcomed bin Laden’s death, but its Foreign Ministry expressed deep concerns about the raid, which it called an "unauthorized unilateral action."
The CIA said it kept Pakistan out of the loop because it feared bin Laden would be tipped off, highlighting the depth of mistrust between the two supposed allies.

U.S. helicopters carrying the commandos used radar "blind spots" in the hilly terrain along the Afghan border to enter Pakistani airspace undetected in the early hours of Monday.

The Pakistani newspaper Dawn compared the latest humiliation with the admission in 2004 that one of the country’s top scientists had sold its nuclear secrets. "Not since Abdul Qadeer Khan confessed to transferring nuclear technology to Iran and Libya has Pakistan suffered such an embarrassment," it said.

The streets around bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad remained sealed off yesterday, with police and soldiers allowing only residents to pass through.


"It’s a crime but what choice are you left with if I’m not handing over your enemy who is hiding in my house?" said Hussain Khan, a retired government official living nearby, when asked about the apparent violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. "Obviously you will go and get him yourself."

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