One person who has seen them is the US President Barack Obama. He told
CBS there were good reasons why they were being withheld.
“Keep in mind that we are absolutely certain this was him. We’ve done DNA sampling and testing. And so there is no doubt that we killed Osama bin Laden,” the President said.
“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. As a propaganda tool.”
One estimate was that as few as 50 people had seen the images. One of those, Republican Senator James Inhofe, has described in detail what he saw.
“One of the shots went through the ear and out through an eye socket, or through the eye socket and out through the ear and exploded, that was the kind of ordinance it was.
That caused the brains to be hanging out of the eye socket,” he told
CNN.
Inhofe was sure it was bin Laden. “Absolutely no question about it. A lot of people out there say: ‘I want to see the pictures,’ but I’ve already seen them. That was him. He’s gone. He’s history.”