U.S. Likely To Release Corpse Photos

UPDATED at 4:51 p.m.: It looks like the White House doesn't want to leave any room for doubt.

Two Pentagon officials have told the Associated Press that Osama Bin Laden's burial in the North Arabian Sea was videotaped and that it will likely be publicly released soon.

[Over on main Slate, Brian Palmer explains why Osama was buried at sea.]

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UPDATED at 3:17 p.m.: It looks like it's a matter of when, not if, the White House will release a photograph of Osama Bin Laden's corpse.

John Brennan, a top counterterrorism adviser to President Obama, suggested to reporters at an afternoon press briefing Monday that a photo will be released at some point in the future. He said that the administration wants to ensure that “nobody has any basis to try to deny that we got Osama Bin Laden.”

But Brennan added that it may take some time before the release because the administration is proceeding with an abundance of caution. “We don’t want to do anything to compromise our ability to be successful the next time we get one of these guys and take him off the battlefield,” he said.

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Original Post at 11:30 a.m.:

The U.S. government has photographs of Osama Bin Laden’s dead body, and the Obama administration is debating whether they should be released publicly.

“There’s no doubt it’s him,” a U.S. officials tells ABC News.

The argument for releasing the photos is that doing so would help end any skepticism through the world that Bin Laden – a man who had previously avoided U.S. forces for nearly a decade despite being at the top of the military’s most-wanted list – has actually been killed.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials say they have used DNA testing to confirm – with 99.9 percent certainty – that the body they buried at sea belonged to the al-Qaida leader.

Politico:

Two administration officials told The Associated Press on Monday morning that tests show, with 99.9 percent certainty, that the body of the man believed to be bin Laden truly is him.

The officials did not offer any other details about the testing, such as from where they had obtained the DNA sample they were using.

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Over on main Slate we’re overflowing with original insight and analysis on Bin Laden's death and what it means for the U.S. both at home and abroad.

-Fred Kaplan explains what it means for al-Qaida and for U.S. relations with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

-Christopher Hitchens takes a look at what Bin Laden’s legacy will be.

-Brian Palmer explains why the U.S. buried him at sea.

-John Dickerson tells you how Obama’s focused, hand-on pursuit of the al-Qaida leader paid off.

And for all you visual learners, we’ve got a slideshow of people celebrating the news.