Several Republican presidential hopefuls want President Barack Obama to release photos that prove U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden during a covert raid in Pakistan, criticizing the Democrat's decision-making just days after many praised him for getting the world's most-wanted terrorist.
Texas Rep. Ron Paul said Thursday that he sides with transparency when there is public doubt. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said "it would have been OK to release the photos." And former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin accused Obama of "pussy-footing" on making the photos public.
It was a contrast to the initial words of commendation that came from many of Obama's potential GOP rivals just hours after he announced that American forces had tracked down and shot to death the al-Qaida leader behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
By Thursday, some of Obama's potential challengers were criticizing his decision to withhold photos of bin Laden's corpse. Obama has likened the release of the photographs — they are privately described as gruesome by those who have seen them — to spiking a football in the end zone: not what the United States does.
At least one Republican hopeful in a still-forming field agreed. "It's best not to release the photo because it has the potential to incite retaliatory violence against Americans," former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said in a statement.
Earlier this week in Iowa, Pawlenty weighed in on the photos, saying: "This is somebody who had no regard for the 3,000 or so Americans that he killed on 9/11 in horrific conditions; buildings crushing, people jumping out of windows ... And somehow the notion that he and his followers would be offended by that, when they are, in fact, the purveyors of terror. I think it would have been OK to release the photos."
Palin went further, posting this to her Twitter account: "Show photo as warning to others seeking America's destruction. No pussy-footing around, no politicking, no drama; it's part of the mission."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110505/ap_on_el_ge/us_gop2012_bin_laden