President Obama ruled out publicly releasing photographs of the deceased Osama bin Laden on Wednesday, and White House officials said they would give no new details about the raid on his compound in Pakistan, an information clampdown that followed fitful attempts to craft a riveting narrative about the killing of al-Qaeda’s leader…

Just days after one of the most heralded covert actions in U.S. history, the White House found itself struggling to tell the story of the dramatic raid and having to justify the legal basis for it.

The conundrum mirrored problems that the Obama administration has had communicating its national security approach in the past. From the immediate aftermath of an attempted airliner bombing on Dec. 25, 2009, to the early management of the H1N1 flu crisis, the White House has repeatedly labored to prove its command of inflammatory facts during fast-moving events…

“The only problem I see is they attempted to brief the world in detail before they had an opportunity to fully debrief the troops involved,” Lungren said. “If they look back on it, I think they’d probably say they should’ve waited to have a full debriefing from our military personnel who carried out the mission. But I don’t see any indication that there’s anything untoward, or that they’re trying to hide anything or they were trying to orchestrate anything.”