The president?s judgment came after a brief but intense debate in his war council about the pros and cons of making the photos public, administration officials said. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned that images of a bloodied Bin Laden would pose a risk to national security. But the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, said he believed the eventual release of photos was inevitable.

Even as the White House decided against providing visual evidence of Bin Laden?s death, new details emerged of his final moments early Monday on the top floor of a fortified house in Pakistan, cornered by a Navy Seal assault team.

Administration officials said for the first time that the commandos who entered the room on the third floor saw an AK-47 and a pistol within arm?s reach of the Qaeda leader. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because some of the details of the raid remained classified, said they could not confirm whether Bin Laden tried to grab the weapons. The commandos also suspected that he might be wearing a suicide vest, the officials added.

Shortly after the American helicopters touched down, Bin Laden?s trusted courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, opened fire from behind the door of the guest house, which was next to the house where Bin Laden was hiding, the officials said. They added that Mr. Kuwaiti was the first of the militants killed and that Bin Laden?s son Khalid was killed between the second and third floor of the main house.

When the firefight was over and Bin Laden was dead, the Americans found a trove of information: approximately 100 thumb drives, DVDs, and computer disks, along with 10 computer hard drives and 5 computers. There were also piles of paper documents in the house.

The officials said the first goal was to sift through the data to determine whether it contained information about terror plots in the works, or about the whereabouts of other top Qaeda operatives. After that, they said, analysts will try to build a picture about Bin Laden?s support network around Pakistan and look for any evidence that Pakistani officials might have facilitated his years in hiding.

The White House declined to release any additional details about the operation, saying that further information would jeopardize the military?s ability to conduct clandestine operations in the future. The administration?s reticence came after it was forced on Tuesday to correct parts of its initial account of the raid, including assertions that Bin Laden had used his wife as a ?human shield.?

?We?ve revealed a lot of information; we?ve been as forthcoming with facts as we can be,? the White House spokesman, Jay Carney, said.

Mr. Carney said the president expressed doubts early on about releasing the photos, but consulted his senior advisers. All of them, Mr. Carney said, voiced concerns about the risks. Based on its monitoring of worldwide reaction to the announcement of Bin Laden?s death, Mr. Carney said, the administration also concluded that most people viewed the reports of his death as credible and that publicizing photos would do little to sway those who believed it was a hoax.

Mr. Obama was direct in an interview with the CBS News program ?60 Minutes,? to be broadcast Sunday, according to a transcript released by the network. ?It is very important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence ? as a propaganda tool.?

?That?s not who we are,? the president added. ?You know, we don?t trot out this stuff as trophies.?

?Certainly there?s no doubt among Al Qaeda members that he is dead,? Mr. Obama said in the ?60 Minutes? interview. ?And so we don?t think that a photograph in and of itself is going to make any difference. There are going to be some folks who deny it. The fact of the matter is, you will not see Bin Laden walking on this earth again.?

The deliberations were reminiscent of Mr. Obama?s decision in May 2009 to fight the release of photos documenting the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan by American military personnel. The administration said originally that it would not oppose releasing the pictures, but the president decided he would fight making them public after his military commanders warned that the images could provoke a reaction against troops in those countries.

On Thursday, the White House said Mr. Obama would take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Sept. 11 memorial in Lower Manhattan. He is also scheduled to meet with relatives of the victims of the terrorist attacks, but he will not make a speech. The next day, he is to travel to Fort Campbell in Kentucky to speak to troops returning from Afghanistan.

Seeking to quell any legal questions about the raid, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said, ?It was justified as an act of national self-defense,? citing Bin Laden?s role as the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

There were divided opinions on Capitol Hill about the photographs, with some lawmakers saying the United States needed to show proof that Bin Laden was dead, while others worried about the possibility of blowback against American troops.

?The whole purpose of sending our troops into the compound, rather than an aerial bombardment, was to obtain indisputable evidence of Bin Laden?s death,? said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. ?The best way to protect and defend our interests overseas is to prove that fact to the rest of the world.?

But Representative Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan and chairman of the House intelligence committee, said, ?Imagine how the American people would react if Al Qaeda killed one of our troops or military leaders, and put photos of the body on the Internet.?

Analysts said the administration?s decision, while understandable on security grounds, might not prevent the images from circulating. ?In the era of WikiLeaks, somebody?s going to leak it,? said Brian Katulis, a national security expert at the Center for American Progress.

Helene Cooper and Thom Shanker contributed reporting.