The first set had nine 'pretty graphic' photographs 'in the first one minute after the hit,' he says. | AP Sen.: Osama photos 'pretty graphic'

After viewing a dozen photos of Osama bin Laden’s corpse, Sen. Jim Inhofe said Thursday morning there is “no doubt” in his mind the al-Qaeda leader is dead and that some of the pictures should be released to the public.

The Oklahoma Republican checked his Blackberry at the door before being escorted into a conference room and left alone with photos of bin Laden’s body at CIA headquarters on Wednesday. Inhofe was the first senator to see the photos, which have been closely guarded by the Central Intelligence Agency.


The first set included nine “pretty graphic” photographs “in the first one minute after the hit” in bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, Inhofe said. The photos were close-ups of bin Laden’s head and torso as he was lying on the ground. He had a salt-and-pepper beard, his chest was exposed and he was wearing an “undergarment.”

“It was hard to tell if the bullet went through his ear and out the eye socket or vice versa,” Inhofe told POLITICO in an interview. “There was head matter, appearing to be brains, coming out of the socket.”

Three other photos, taken when bin Laden was alive, were provided for comparison purposes.

The final three photos were taken aboard the U.S.S. Carl Vinson as bin Laden’s body was being prepared for burial at sea. Two of them were of bin Laden’s body being cleaned; the third was of his body being deposited into the North Arabian Sea.

“I thought in my own mind they should release to the public the ones of him on the U.S.S. Vinson,” Inhofe said. “First, he had been cleaned up, so it is not as offensive. And second, by him being cleaned up, it is much more obvious who it was.”

President Barack Obama decided he would not release any of the photos to the public, but CIA Director Leon Panetta has invited members of the House and Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees to view them at the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Va.

Inhofe, an Armed Services Committee member and Army veteran, is the first senator to view the bin Laden photos, though House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said he had seen them more than a week ago.

“There was no doubt before” that bin Laden was dead, “but now there is no doubt,” Inhofe said.

Other members of Congress, including Reps. Ben Chandler (D-Ky.) and Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), began streaming over to CIA headquarters on Thursday morning. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said she had seen the photos but didn’t provide any details.

“I am convinced that this was bin Laden. We got our man,” Bachmann said in a statement. “While these photos provide certainty of bin Laden’s identity, I also believe the best evidence of bin Laden’s identity is found through the release of the terrorist’s DNA match.”

Maryland Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, spent about a half hour reviewing the photos in a fourth-floor conference room at the CIA.

“My first thought was, this was Osama bin Laden,” Ruppersberger told the Baltimore Sun. “It wasn’t really gruesome… There was some blood but his face was not distorted to the point where you couldn’t really determine who he was.”

Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, was one of three Republicans involved in an embarrassing episode last week in which they described seeing post-mortem photos of bin Laden. They later were determined to be fakes, and Chambliss told POLITICO Thursday that he will not be heading to Langley to see the real ones.

But Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), who heads the Armed Services subcommittee that oversees the special operations forces that killed bin Laden, said that she had set up an appointment at the CIA next week.

“I just think it’s part of my duty to the military an the people of North Carolina,” Hagan told POLITICO. “I certainly do believe bin Laden was killed, but I just think it’s part of my duty.”