“59 Photos Of Bin Laden’s Body” - SEAL Team Six Member BLASTS Secrecy Over Osama Bin Laden's Body
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
242.31964
Summary
Former Navy SEAL Robert J. O'Neill talks about why the government won't release the photos and video taken of Osama bin Laden after his death in Afghanistan in 2011. He also talks about the possibility that some of the photos were taken by other members of the elite SEALs.
Transcript
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The story about when, I don't know who it was that came out and said,
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we'd like you to release the 59 pictures you took of Osama bin Laden
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and the one video, and then they came back and what did they say?
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There's two reasons why we don't want to release them.
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One of them is what it's going to do to increase the temperature
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because those pictures are going to be used to create hate and anger against them.
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There was another reason why they didn't want to release it.
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Did you agree with them when they didn't want to release the pictures and the video?
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No, I think they should release them just for the argument of we didn't kill them
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And now, I mean, even if we showed people, well, that's AI generated, so it's fake.
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People who don't believe, they don't want to believe.
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And then, I mean, it is true that it's violent.
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It's not like a video game and his face was destroyed,
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literally holding it together to get a picture.
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and then we have the professional ones taken after at Bagram Airfield.
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And I don't know why they haven't released them.
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I don't know why they've been – like, I said you should hang them from the Brooklyn Bridge
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But then the videos, as far as I know – I mean, I didn't carry a camera.
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We're not big into carrying video cameras for the same reason cops do it.
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And I've even seen from personal experience with Monday morning quarterbacks
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So it's – I would rather not have video than have guys end up in prison
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because you're making life and decisions in the blink of an eye.
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And if you have months or years to analyze movement, that's the problem.
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Risk of inflaming anti-American sentiment and threats to national security
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if the photos were used as propaganda by terrorist groups.
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So as of 2025, photos were made with CIA and Pentagon-classified archives,
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And 2012, Judicial Watch filed the Freedom Act, but nothing happened to it.
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So when you're there, did you guys have cell phones or no?
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I did have a camera, but it was 2011, so it wasn't an iPhone.
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Were people taking pictures at the time or not?
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Well, they weren't official, but they were from the shooters.
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Because a lot of us carry cameras just based on the amount of shooting and killing we did.
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They would like pictures almost like a crime scene.
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Can you get a picture, please, of what went down when you went in the room,
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So we all had, and we knew we wanted to get pictures back.
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God forbid one of the helicopters with his body gets shot down.
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We had redundancy with DNA of body, and then different pictures were taken.
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How would they know that some of you guys didn't keep those pictures yourself?
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But I'm saying, say somebody's like, dude, I'm going to keep this,
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Somebody who doesn't believe it, I'm going to keep it.
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But how do they know that some guys didn't take their own pictures?
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I mean, it must have been a trust thing, I guess.
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I know me personally, and I can't speak for everyone,
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it was more of a get in, get them, and then let's see if we can live.
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This is Robert J. O'Neill, former SEAL Team 6 operators.
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I was fortunate to be on some of the most high-profile missions
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But I am now on MNECT, and you can connect with me there,
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Any crazy questions you have that you may or may not want the answers to,
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If you enjoyed this video, you want to watch more videos,
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