Obama’s comprehensive speech covered a variety of topics, though he emphasized the United States would give its support to countries forming new democracies — specifically Egypt and Tunisia — and would protect Israeli security interests, while fostering tolerance of religious minorities in the Arab world.

However, the President also called for restoring the pre-1967 borders between Palestine and Israel, which met with some disagreement from certain lawmakers in Washington D.C.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), said he appreciated the President’s support of Israel as it “complements the goal of spreading freedom and peace in the region,” but was also critical of Obama’s idea to reinstate the borders between long-time foes Israel and Palestine.

“While the United States has a role to play in setting the stage for peace negotiations, we shouldn’t undermine this process by setting preconditions on Israel, as the President now has done,” Grassley said through a spokesman Thursday.

U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-Iowa), called Obama’s speech both “timely and comprehensive,” and said he agreed with Obama’s support of Egypt and Tunisia.

“The Middle East is changing, and I am hopeful that this progress will bring stability and peace to the region,” Boswell said through a spokesperson. “I was pleased that he addressed Arab-Israeli relations and the need for a two-state solution.”

Other legislators hope Obama’s stances will redefine U.S.-Arab relations and foreign policy in the Middle East.

“With the death of Osama bin Laden, it is time to get away from the ‘war on terror’ mentality that has driven so much of our policy, which I’ve never agreed with, and which puts great strain on our relations with Islamic nations,” Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said through a spokesman.

Watch President Obama’s remarks below:

His statement:

Today, Mark Udall, a member of the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees, released the following statement after viewing the classified photos of Osama bin Laden. The photos were made available to certain members of the House and Senate after Udall called for the White House to allow Intelligence Committee members to see them.

“It was important for the administration to make the photos of bin Laden available to members of the legislative committees overseeing the intelligence agencies, and I want to thank the President for acting quickly on my request. This was not something I looked forward to. But I believe that by ensuring that two branches of the United States government have access to the photos, we have eliminated the potential that anyone could ever question – now or in the future – whether this terrorist has been brought to justice.

“After seeing the photos, I still agree with the President’s decision not to make them public. Bin Laden’s body is not a trophy, and such a move could inflame jihadists and put our nation and our allies at risk.”

“The guy is dead. That is good,” Bush told a CNBC moderator before a crowd of nearly 200, according to ABC news. “Osama’s death is a great victory in the war on terror. He was held up as a leader.”

Bush has declined interviews with the media, and he turned down the president’s invitation to join him at Ground Zero with other political leaders in the wake of the news.

At the Wednesday appearance, however, he spoke freely. He said the intelligence services deserve the credit for the success of the mission because they built “a mosaic of information, piece by piece.”

He also talked about the the soldiers who conducted the raid.

“I met SEAL Team Six in Afghanistan. They are awesome, skilled, talented and brave. I said, ‘I hope you have everything you need. One guy said, ‘We need your permission to go into Pakistan and kick ass.’”

Bush reasserted his belief that the U.S. must to continue to promote ideas about democracy and freedom around the world to combat terrorism. He made that point, according to an ABC blogger at the event, in the sort of clanging well-meaning manner he made familiar to Americans and people all over the world during his presidency. In talking about the desire for freedom, he described “people who don’t look like us,” by which he presumably meant non-white non-Christians, and he talked about the “relatives of Condoleezza Rice,” by which he presumably meant black American slaves.

“The long-term solution is to promote a better ideology, which is freedom. Freedom is universal,” he told the hedge-funders. “People who do not look like us want freedom just as much. The relatives of [former Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice over 100 years ago wanted freedom. It is only when you do not have hope in a society that you join a suicide bomber team.”

“As a member of the Armed Services Committee,” Loebsack told The Iowa Independent by phone Thursday, “I take my oversight role very seriously. So, as a member of that Committee I was invited to come and view the photos.”

Only a short time before speaking with The Iowa Independent, Loebsack had traveled to CIA headquarters to see the pictures for himself. He did not have any doubts about bin Laden’s death before seeing the photos, but felt obligated to view them as a part of his oversight duties.

President Barack Obama has decided not to release the photos publicly, a move backed by a majority of Americans, according to a recent NBC poll. Loebsack said he agrees with the decision even more after seeing the pictures firsthand.

“I will say that my initial judgment about our President’s decision and our military leaders’ recommendations not to release the photos was confirmed once I saw the photos,” he said. “Obviously, I cannot go into any details about the specifics of the photos.”

“I remained concerned about our nearly 3,000 Iowa National Guard troops stationed in Afghanistan at this time, and I worry about how potential reaction [to the release of the photos] could impact them. I worry about our American citizens who are traveling and working abroad as well. Al Qaeda has a worldwide network. So, there has to be concern if these photos were released that there would be a reaction against Americans.”

U.S. troops, he said, did “a fantastic job” carrying out the operation against bin Laden, and the intelligence community “did a wonderful job” providing military leaders the information they needed to set a plan in motion.

The ultimate decision to release any proof of bin Laden’s demise — such as DNA evidence — should be a decision made by the White House, Loebsack said.

“I’m going to leave it up to the administration,” he said. “I believe the [Obama] administration have used good judgment in all of this. I defer to our Commander in Chief and to our military leaders in deciding what will pose a threat to our country and our troops. … For me, this is about the safety of our country and the security of our troops.”

A member of the House Intelligence Committee, Bachmann is among a small number of legislators who got a chance to see the documentation.

“While these photos provide certainty of bin Laden’s identity,” the Sixth District Republican said, “I also believe the best evidence of bin Laden’s identity is found through the release of the terrorist’s DNA match.”

She reiterated the point in a tweet an hour ago:

Because of his role on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. John Kline was also invited, but declined.

“I have absolute confidence that he is dead, and looking at the picture doesn’t make him any deader,” Kline said, in a report by the Strib’s Kevin Diaz.

President Barack Obama has decided not to release the photos publicly, a move backed by a majority of Americans, according to a recent NBC poll.

Several grisly photos (warning: graphic pictures of dead bodies) of the aftermath of the early-morning raid have already surfaced. The Reuters news agency obtained them from a member of Pakistan’s security forces who entered bin Laden’s compound after a team of Navy SEALs shot and killed bin Laden. None of the photographs, however, show bin Laden, and President Obama has said his administration will not release any such pictures out of concern that they would incite additional violence or be used for anti-American propaganda.

The AP, however, maintains that such a judgment call runs counter to its ability to determine whether the photographs are newsworthy. Michael Oreskes, senior managing editor of the AP, told The Atlantic’s John Hudson, “In the week since the raid there’s been a whole series of story-lines about what happened in this raid. At this point, anything that might shed more light on what occurred is potentially quite newsworthy. So we would like this imagery to fully understand what happened during this event.”

In the text of its FOIA request, the AP wrote hopefully to the administration, reminding it of the promises that had been during the Obama campaign:

“The Obama White House ‘pledged to be the most transparent government in U.S. history,” wrote the AP,  “and to comply much more closely with the Freedom of Information Act than the Bush administration did.’”

The AP joins Politico, Fox News, Judicial Watch and Citizens United (the controversial right-wing nonprofit group at the center of a notorious and contested Supreme Court decision) in filing FOIA requests for the pictures. So far, Politico is the only organization to report that it’s received an acknowledgment of its request, which has been forwarded to U.S. Army Intelligence.

If in fact that means that the Army has possession of the photos, it might make the FOIA requests a bit harder for the government to fight. Were the photos classified as presidential records, they couldn’t be released until at least after Obama leaves office, but if, as appears to be the case, the Army has them, it’s slightly more difficult to block their release to news agencies like the AP, Politico and Fox News.

Still, even though the Army is subject to immediate FOIA requests, petitions to see the pictures from the media and the public could be shot down for any number of reasons. In a post on the blog for George Washington University’s National Security Archive, the organization’s Nate Jones laid out several ways that the government could make the photos exempt from FOIA requests, thus blocking their release.

Writing last week, before the crop of FOIA requests was known, Jones explained that the government could use any of several exemption statutes pertaining to national security to block the photos’ release, or it could even cite privacy laws protecting the bin Laden family, an action for which there is actually precedent (PDF).

If all else fails, Jones says, President Obama can lean on Congress to quickly pass a law granting a statutory exemption to the photos — meaning there would be a case-specific injunction against release. That may seem at first blush like a last-ditch effort, but there are in fact 240 such exemptions currently on the books, including one against the release of any more pictures of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib than have already been made public.

Of course, any organization faced with a FOIA exemption can appeal the decision, but it’s a drawn-out process unlikely in such a high-profile case to bear any fruit. Barring any major surprises (or leaks), the photographs of bin Laden’s death seem unlikely to ever see the light of day.

MSNBC reports:

Fifty-two percent said they strongly believe the Obama administration should not release the photos, and an additional 12 percent agreed, although not as strongly.

By comparison, 24 percent said they strongly believe the photos should be released, and 5 percent more agreed not so strongly.

The complete results of the poll will be released later today.

The news may come as a surprise to public figures like Sarah Palin who have pandered to the so-called “deather” conspiracy holding that last weekend’s raid on bin Laden’s Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound was somehow faked. Last week, Palin used her Twitter account to command Obama to release the photos. She contended that releasing the images would scare would-be terrorists from tangling with the U.S. “No pussy-footing around, no politicking, no drama,” she said. “[I]t’s part of the mission.”

Other Republicans, including Sen. Lindsay Graham (S.C.) and Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), have also come out in favor of releasing the photos, though they both said it was out of concern that conspiracy theories surrounding bin Laden would create political fallout at home and abroad. DNA tests and an al Qaeda statement have since confirmed bin Laden’s death at the hands of the U.S. military.

“My hope is that from this success in the foreign policy arena two days ago, that he will be emboldened to take once again to the Congress legislation — not just to increase a renewable energy standard — but climate change legislation that this country and the world need,” Richardson said.

The foreign policy success that Richardson referred to was the death of Osama bin Laden, who was killed by United States forces in Pakistan on Sunday.

Before being elected New Mexico’s governor in 2002, Richardson served in Congress, as the Secretary of Energy and as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations.

Any climate legislation would face an uphill battle in the current Congress. Republicans control the House of Representatives, and the Senate was unable to reach 60 votes on climate legislation in the last Congress, which had a much higher percentage of Democrats.

In a question to David S. Cohen, nominee to be under secretary for terrorism and financial crimes at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Bennet remarked, “You had said that you had some success interrupting the financial networks that support Al Qaeda and I wonder if you could describe… the effect that Osama Bin Laden’s death might have on that financing if any…”

On the question of whether Bin Laden’s death will disrupt future financing, Cohen said that although the development represents a step in the right direction, it’s “by no means an end of the road.” Cohen also said that significant terrorist network overlap does exist and requires a more comprehensive approach to counteract financing for various terrorist factions.

Sen. Mark Udall

“Thousands of American men and women have fought and died to defeat the terrorists led by Osama bin Laden who attacked our nation on September 11, 2001. The death of bin Laden is a major milestone in U.S. efforts to eradicate terrorism and keep our homeland safe.

“I salute our brave service members, our intelligence community, and our commander in chief, on this important occasion. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Intelligence Committee, I will continue to ensure that our government does all it can to keep Coloradans and every American safe from enemies who wish to do us harm.”