Curtains Ordered for Media Coverage of Returning Coffins

Since the end of the Vietnam War, presidents have worried that their military actions would lose support once the public glimpsed the remains of U.S. soldiers arriving at air bases in flag-draped caskets.

To this problem, the Bush administration has found a simple solution: It has ended the public dissemination of such images by banning news coverage and photography of dead soldiers' homecomings on all military bases.

In March, on the eve of the Iraq war, a directive arrived from the Pentagon at U.S. military bases. "There will be no arrival ceremonies for, or media coverage of, deceased military personnel returning to or departing from Ramstein [Germany] airbase or Dover [Del.] base, to include interim stops," the Defense Department said, referring to the major ports for the returning remains.

A Pentagon spokeswoman said the military-wide policy actually dates from about November 2000 -- the last days of the Clinton administration -- but it apparently went unheeded and unenforced, as images of caskets returning from the Afghanistan war appeared on television broadcasts and in newspapers until early this year. Though Dover Air Force Base, which has the military's largest mortuary, has had restrictions for 12 years, others "may not have been familiar with the policy," the spokeswoman said. This year, "we've really tried to enforce it."

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Well I can't help thinking about how you see all those old news reels from WWII with the dead coming back, draped in their flag. People watched and were proud of them for giving their lives for their country.

Now this kind of coverage has been stopped altogether, and although it's been around for awhile the Bush Admin. is really enforcing it. To me this is nothing but an act of guilt, worried of public opinion.

sounds like two things to me:
they don't want people to see that people are dying in a war that isn't officially declared for a cause people dont' feel particularly passionate about

they don't want anyone to see how many bodies come back so the death figures can be fudged

I dont know how much longer they can keep covering this up. It makes you wonder what is really going on over there and what the real numbers are. Anybody have a legitimate source of factual numbers?

Everytime I hear numbers they are always different. I guess it's down to who you trust in the media (which to me is NOBODY).

I don't think we will know the real number of casualties in Iraq for a while. Bush and Blair are fighting a media war so they have to choose how much death the public are allowed to view through the media so they don't look bad. It's a joke.