One of these pictures was on the front page of today's Washington Post. The acompanying article made it sound like they were approved by the US military. They made a big deal about it in the article, because normally it isn't allowed.
I didn't read the entire article, but the first few paragraphs made it sound like the US military expressly authorised the photographs.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/print/image/
