Instead of a chaotic firefight, the U.S. officials said, the American commando assault was a precision operation, with SEALs moving carefully through the compound, room to room, floor to floor. Many of the residents of Abbottabad seem... (Associated Press) 
 
 White House Press Secretary Jay Carney tells reporters that President Barack Obama will not release photos of Osama bin Laden's body, Wednesday, May 4, 2011, during the daily briefing at the White House... (Associated Press) 
 
 The National September 11 Memorial and Museum is under construction, lower right, Tuesday, May 3, 2011 at the World Trade Center site in New York. The fact of the matter is, you will not see Bin Laden walking on this earth again.” 
 
 The deliberations were reminiscent of Mr. Obama’s decision in May 2009 to fight the release of photos documenting the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan by American military personnel. “It is very 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.” 
 
 “That’s not who we are,” Mr. Obama added. After two days of shifting accounts of the dramatic raid, Carney said he would no longer provide details of the 40-minute operation by the team of elite Navy SEALs. The U.S. officials describing the operation said the SEALs carefully gathered up 22 women and children to ensure they were not harmed. Seeking to quell any legal questions about the raid, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said, “It was justified as an act of national self-defense,” citing Bin Laden’s role as the architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In addition to bin Laden's body, the SEALs helicoptered out of the compound with computer files, flash drives, DVDs and documents that intelligence officials have begun analyzing in hopes the information will help them degrade or destroy the network bin Laden left behind. In New York on Thursday, Carney said, Obama will lay a wreath at the World Trade Center site and hold a private meeting with relatives of some of the victims of the attacks, in which jetliners hijacked by terrorists were flown into the side of first one tower, then the other. The government has 20 days to respond. The White House also announced Obama would visit Fort Campbell, Ky., on Friday to greet troops returning from Afghanistan, which the United States attacked in 2001 after its leaders refused to turn over members of the al-Qaida leadership living there.
– There was fire, but no real firefight. That's the latest revision in the White House's version of events during the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound. The fire came from some 20 Navy Seals who shot dead bin Laden and three other men and a woman, only one of whom was armed, officials say now. Bin Laden's courier, Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, fired on the Seals as they launched the raid. After he and his wife were shot dead, the Americans weren't fired on again, reports AP. The others were killed because US forces believed they all posed a "serious threat," said a federal source. Initially, White House officials said the special forces came under heavy, prolonged small-arms fire as they moved into bin Laden's hideout. Instead of chaos amidst a hail of gunfire, the team moved methodically from room to room in what the New York Times characterizes as a "one-sided" 40-minute operation, confronting bin Laden aides and gathering some 22 children and women, some of whom were placed in plastic handcuffs. The US forces ended up in bin Laden's bedroom, shooting his wife in the leg and the apparently pajama-clad al-Qaeda leader in the head and chest, reports MSNBC. Bin Laden was shot as he appeared to be reaching for a nearby weapon, said a spokesman. CIA Chief Leon Panetta had reported that the men were "engaged in a firefight throughout the operation." White House officials said all details of the raid were not initially clear. "They were in a threatening and hostile environment the entire time," one official told the Times.