Some carefully selected members of Congress are now being allowed by the CIA to view photos of the corpose of Al Qaeda terrorism chief Osama bin Laden. And they say it truly ain’t pretty. But one Senator thinks the government should reconsider and show the public a photo taken of the mass murderer’s cleaned up body before it was dumped into the ocean.
Republican Sen. James Inhofe told CNN’s Eliot Spitzer on Wednesday he saw about 15 photos of bin Laden’s body, most taken at the al Qaeda leader’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Three were taken on a naval vessel from which bin Laden was buried at sea after the May 2 U.S. commando raid.
“Pretty gruesome” is how Inhofe described photos of brains hanging out of bin Laden’s eye socket. The wound either entered or exited an ear, the Oklahoma senator said.
Many people have demanded proof that bin Laden was killed.This should go a long way to defuse those in the U.S. who’ve been insinuating that the photos aren’t being released because it’s some kind of political trick.
“That was him,” said Inhofe, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “He is gone. He’s history.”
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, told CNN national correspondent Susan Candiotti he will see the images Thursday morning at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
And more details on Fox News with Shepard Smith:
Republican Rep. Peter King sparks memories of this song when he says that seeing the photos will give him “satisfaction.”
Rep. Peter King says he’ll view the CIA’s photos of Osama bin Laden’s corpse out of “curiosity” and because he thinks he’ll feel better from seeing the Al Qaeda leader dead.
In an interview with POLITICO on Wednesday, the House Homeland Security Committee chairman said that “after having lost so many friends and neighbors and constituents on September 11” — the New York Republican represents parts of Long Island immediately outside New York City — “to actually see the person with my own eyes who did it, see him dead … gives me some satisfaction.”
King plans to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., in the next few days to take up the agency’s offer to show the images to members of the House and Senate committees that deal with intelligence and national security. Sens. Harry Reid and Joe Lieberman have said they plan to see the photos. Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, meanwhile, said he was not interested in seeing them, quipping: “I’ve seen enough dead people.”
King had called for President Barack Obama to release the photos of bin Laden’s corpse publicly, and he still thinks the president made the wrong call. “I’m not president, I’m not going to be president, so I disagree with the president but it’s not a strong matter of disagreement,” he said.
More than just sating his own curiosity, King said he thinks that seeing the photos will give him some credibility in talking about bin Laden’s killing. “I’ll be able to say, ‘yes, bin Laden was killed, I saw it’ and I think it will give some – again just in public appearances and talking to people if the debate does arise in the next year or so is he really dead.”
King is correct. He and others can effectively squelch the implication in the United States and around the world that somehow the photos are not being released because bin Laden wasn’t killed or they revealed something not in keeping with the government account.
Not that that will matter much to some……
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.