White House says bin Laden was unarmed during SEAL raid

WASHINGTON -- Osama bin Laden was unarmed when Navy SEALs burst into his room and shot him to death, the White House said Tuesday, a change in the official account.

The Obama administration, meanwhile, was still debating whether to release images of bin Laden's corpse, balancing efforts to demonstrate to the world that he was dead against the risk that the images could provoke further anti-U.S. sentiment. But CIA director Leon Panetta said a photograph would be released.

"I don't think there was any question that ultimately a photograph would be presented to the public," Panetta said in an interview with "NBC Nightly News."

After killing the world's most wanted terrorist, the SEAL team in just minutes quickly swept bin Laden's compound for useful intelligence, making off with a cache of computer equipment and documents. The CIA was hurriedly setting up a task force to review the material from the highest level of al-Qaida's leadership.

The documents provide a rare opportunity for U.S. intelligence. When a midlevel terrorist is captured, his bosses know exactly what information might be compromised and can change plans. When the boss is taken, everything might be compromised but nobody knows for sure.

Panetta said bin Laden didn't have time to speak to the SEALs who killed him.

"I don't think he had a lot of time to say anything," Panetta said in an interview with PBS NewsHour. "It was a firefight going up that compound. ... This was all split-second action on the part of the SEALs."

Panetta said bin Laden made "some threatening moves that were made that clearly represented a clear threat to our guys. And that's the reason they fired."

The question of how to present bin Laden's death to the world is a balancing act for the White House. President Barack Obama told Americans that justice had been done, but the White House also assured the world that bin Laden's body was treated respectfully and sent to rest in a somber ceremony at sea.

Panetta underscored Tuesday that Obama had given permission to kill the terror leader: "The authority here was to kill bin Laden," he said. "And obviously, under the rules of engagement, if he had in fact thrown up his hands, surrendered and didn't appear to be representing any kind of threat, then they were to capture him. But they had full authority to kill him."

Yet just 24 hours before the White House acknowledged that bin Laden had been unarmed, Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, said: "If we had the opportunity to take bin Laden alive, if he didn't present any threat, the individuals involved were able and prepared to do that."

On Monday, the White House said bin Laden was involved in a firefight, which is why the SEALs killed rather than captured him. On Tuesday, however, White House press secretary Jay Carney said bin Laden did not fire on the SEALs. He said bin Laden resisted but offered no specifics. Bin Laden's wife rushed the SEALs when they stormed the room, Carney said, and was shot in the calf.

"Bin Laden was then shot and killed," Carney said. "He was not armed."

That was one of many official details that have changed in the two days since bin Laden was killed. The White House misidentified which of bin Laden's sons was killed -- it was Khalid, not Hamza. Officials incorrectly said bin Laden's wife died in gunfire while serving as his human shield. That was actually bin Laden's aide's wife, and she was just caught in crossfire, the White House said Tuesday.

'With great haste'

Carney attributed those discrepancies to the fog of war, saying the information was coming in bit by bit and was still being reviewed.

"We provided a great deal of information with great haste in order to inform you, and through you the American public, about the operation and how it transpired and the events that took place there in Pakistan," Carney told reporters Tuesday. "And obviously some of the information came in piece by piece and is being reviewed and updated and elaborated on."

Five people were killed in the raid, officials said: bin Laden; his son; his most trusted courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, and al-Kuwaiti's wife and brother.

Al-Kuwaiti inadvertently led intelligence officials to bin Laden when he used a telephone last year to talk with someone the U.S. had wiretapped. The CIA then tracked al-Kuwaiti back to the walled compound in a town near Islamabad.

The Pakistani government has denied suggestions that its security forces knew anything about bin Laden's hide-out or failed to spot suspicious signs. But in the closed-door briefing for lawmakers Tuesday, Panetta said, "Pakistan was involved or incompetent," a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the private briefing.

Though Monday's pre-dawn raid on that compound was a major counterterrorism victory, there had been no guarantee of success. Government analysts suspected bin Laden was living there but could never prove it. Satellite surveillance provided the military with images to plan its strike but never captured a picture of bin Laden on the property.

With no assurance that bin Laden would be there, sending troops into Pakistan was a risky call. The SEALs could storm a compound and find no terrorists at all, leaving Pakistan furious about a U.S. military incursion. Or the Pakistani military, not realizing what was going on, could send its own air force to attack the SEAL team.

The SEALs all got out of the downed helicopter and proceeded into the compound. As they swept through the property, they handcuffed those they encountered with plastic zip ties and pressed on in pursuit of their target, code-named Geronimo. Many SEAL team members carry helmet-mounted cameras, but the video beamed back to Washington did not show the fateful showdown with bin Laden, officials said.

That word came from the SEALs on the ground: "Geronimo EKIA" -- enemy killed in action.

The CIA's makeshift command center erupted in applause as the SEALs helicoptered to safety.

Now, the agency's attention turns to finding the intelligence in the computer files, flash drives, DVDs and documents hauled out of the compound. All of that is in Washington and the analysis has begun. The SEALs also confiscated phone numbers from bin Laden's body, and those might provide new leads for investigators. If the intelligence provides the kind of insight about al-Qaida operations that officials hope, the U.S. could deliver follow-up strikes against al-Qaida's remaining leaders.