Obama won't release bin Laden photo; other graphic images released

President Barack Obama said Wednesday he has decided not to release death photos of terrorist Osama bin Laden because their graphic nature could incite violence and create national security risks for the United States.

“There’s no doubt we killed Osama bin Laden,” the president said in an interview with CBS News. Obama said there was no need to release the photographs or gloat.

News agency releases graphic photos of other men killed in the compound

The president said that for anyone who does not believe bin Laden is dead, “we don’t think that a photograph in and of itself is going to make any difference.”

“There are going to be some folks who deny it. The fact of the matter is you won’t see bin Laden walking on this earth again,” said Obama.

The president made his comments in an interview Wednesday with CBS’ “60 Minutes". Presidential spokesman Jay Carney read the president’s quotes to reporters in the White House briefing room, ahead of the program’s airing.

The photos show bin Laden shot in the head. CIA Director Leon Panetta said Tuesday he expected at least one photo to be released. Asked about that, Carney said the decision had not been made at that time.

But Carney also said the president never doubted his position on not releasing the photos, Obama said in the interview, “It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence.”

“I think that, given the graphic nature of these photos, it would create some national security risk,” he said.

Carney said there would not be images released of bin Laden’s burial at sea, either.

Some family members of those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks thought it important to document bin Laden’s death, as did some skeptics in the Arab world who doubted his demise in the absence of convincing evidence. But many lawmakers and others expressed concerns that the photographic images could be seen as a “trophy” that would inflame U.S. critics and makes it harder for members of the American military deployed overseas to do their jobs.

Obama’s decision on the photos came a day ahead of his planned visit to ground zero in New York City to lay a wreath and visit with Sept. 11 families and emergency workers.

It also came after a revised description of the circumstances of bin Laden’s death. After initially saying the terrorist was armed or even firing, the White House said Tuesday that bin Laden was unarmed, raising questions about the basis for his killing.

Attorney General Eric Holder, in a congressional appearance, sought to underscore the legality of the shooting.

“Let me make something very clear: The operation in which Osama bin Laden was killed was lawful,” Holder told the senators Wednesday. The raid “was justified as an action of national self-defense” against “a lawful military target,” he said.

READ MORE about Sept. 11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the death of Osama bin Laden