Rep. Pete King views kill photos of Osama Bin Laden, describes bullet wound, 'intense satisfaction'
BY Alison Gendar AND Richard SiskDaily News
May 13, 2011
“It's him for sure - and "good riddance."
That was the message from Rep. Pete King (R-Nassau) after seeing photos of slain terror kingpin Osama Bin Laden Friday.
Members of Congress who trooped to a stark and spare room at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., to view the photos of a dead Laden - taken by the members of SEAL Team 6 - came away with no doubt that the target of history's greatest manhunt had met his just end.
"His beard was black, his eyes were open, his mouth was open," King said after viewing at least six of the photos.
The more graphic stills showed a "severe head wound over his left eye, that part of his head was missing - but it was not particularly gruesome apart form the wound, his face was not distorted in any way," King said.
King said he viewed the pictures in a secluded, sparse room at the CIA. He said the six or seven photos of Bin Laden were bound together in an album - "like a wedding album."
King was one of more than two dozen lawmakers - from the House and Senate Armed Services and Intelligence Committees - who had to turn in their cellphones before they were allowed an individual viewing in the presence of a lone CIA agent.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who spent an hour poring over the photos, told ABC that they were "really bad, graphic stuff," and they left "absolutely no doubt Osama Bin Laden is dead."
Both Inhofe and King said the photos showed that a bullet had passed through Bin Laden's head between his right ear and left eye socket.
King said there was nothing in the viewing room but a few chairs and a table.
"The room was like a waiting room in a hospital where you get ready for blood tests," King said
Each death photo was encased in a plastic sleeve, and next to it was a photo of a more vibrant Bin Laden, from the same angle, so viewers could compare jaw line, nose, and facial features, King said.
In one of the frames, the boots of the SEALs who stormed Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, could be seen.
King said there was one photo of Bin Laden wrapped in a shroud, laid out on the plank, before he was dropped into the sea.
"I definitely felt a sense of intense satisfaction that we had gotten this guy," King said.
"I had lost many friends" on 9/11, King said. "And I thought of them, and thought of how many families were wounded by this person, for the people he killed and the families left behind. There was nothing jubilant, but I personally did feel a strong sense of satisfaction.”