Watchdog seeks bin Laden photo, says White House ‘not above the law’
A conservative legal watchdog group says the deadline is up and is suing the CIA and Defense Department to release photos and videos of the May raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
“The American people by law have a right to know basic information about the killing of Osama bin Laden,” Tom Fitton, president of Washington-based Judicial Watch, said in a statement. “President Obama’s personal reluctance to release the documents is not a lawful basis for withholding them. The Obama administration will now need to justify its lack of compliance in federal court. This historic lawsuit should remind the administration that it is not above the law.”
The al Qaeda mastermind was killed when U.S. Navy SEALs stormed his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2. He was later buried at sea. Though some members of Congress have been allowed to see photos and CIA Director Leon Panetta initially said it was “important” that the photos be released, President Barack Obama said his administration would not release photos of the slain terrorist leader or his burial.
The photos - which have been described as gruesome and reportedly show brains hanging out of bin Laden’s eye socket - could be used as a propaganda tool and could result in additional violence against American interests, Obama told “60 Minutes” last month, comparing the release of the photos to an unnecessary end-zone celebration.
“We don’t trot out this stuff as trophies,” Obama told the news show. “We don’t need to spike the football.”
There is no justifiable case for releasing the photos and video. None. All it would do is serve as a propaganda tool for the terrorists in the Middle East to get those that might be leaning to the West to bring them to the extremists’ side, and that’s not what the West wants.
