US GOVERNMENT IDIOCY -- Part 26B

CONCEALED PHOTOS OF THE FLAG-DRAPED COFFINS

NOTE: Up until yesterday, 23 April 2004, the US Government was still attempting to conceal these photos from the public. Virtually every attempt we made to find one of the photos on the Internet was blocked -- could not access the file. It was only by dogged persistence, which we have found to be necessary to overcome Government Idiocy, did we find the few shown herein.

A Web site published dozens of photographs of American war dead arriving at the nation's largest military mortuary, prompting the Pentagon to order an information clampdown Thursday. Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Gary Keck said release of the photos appears to be in conflict with policy. The photographs were released last week to First Amendment activist Russ Kick, who had filed a Freedom of Information Act request to receive the images. Air Force officials initially denied the request but decided to release the photos after Kick appealed their decision.

After Kick posted more than 350 photographs on his Web site, the Defense Department barred the further release of the photographs to media outlets. "They're not happy with the release of the photos," Dover Air Force base spokesman Col. Jon Anderson said. The photos were taken at the Dover base - home to the mortuary - and most of the images are of flag-draped coffins.

At a rally in Dover last month, war protesters criticized President Bush for continuing the practice of previous administrations of not allowing the public or media to witness the arrival of remains at the base. "We need to stop hiding the deaths of our young; we need to be open about their deaths," said Jane Bright of West Hills, Calif., whose 24-year-old son, Evan Ashcraft, was killed in combat in July. Telephone and e-mail messages to Kick were not immediately returned Thursday.

The Pentagon move came a day after a cargo worker was fired by a military contractor after her photograph of flag-draped coffins bearing the remains of U.S. soldiers was published on the front page of Sunday editions of The Seattle Times. Tami Silicio, 50, was fired by Maytag Aircraft Corp. on Wednesday after military officials raised concerns about the photograph taken in Kuwait, said William L. Silva, Maytag president.

Silicio took the photograph in a cargo plane about to depart from Kuwait International Airport earlier this month. She sent the photo to a stateside friend who provided it to the newspaper, which then obtained permission from Silicio to publish it. In a telephone interview from Kuwait, Silicio said Friday on ABC's "Good Morning America" that she agreed to the photo's publication because family members of casualties should see that the remains are treated carefully and with respect.

"I think if the administration were more sympathetic, they would see that this is a positive thing," she said. Family members "want to see how our loved ones, how our heroes are being taking care of and how they get home."

By RANDALL CHASE Associated Press Writer

But it gave various images to activist Russ Kick after he filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get hold of them. He has published them on the Internet - to the fury of the Pentagon, who said the photographs invade the privacy of the bereaved families.

The pictures, which show lines of flag-draped coffins, were taken at the US Army's largest mortuary.

 Army Sgt. Osvaldo Ortiz sleeps next to the transfer case and gear of his fallen friend in a C-17 plane. Ortiz accompanied the remains to his friend's home in Puerto Rico.

Information sources Many Americans rely on just one source for their news about Iraq. J. Gregory Payne, director of the center for ethics in political communication at Emerson College in Boston, offers the following tips to those seeking a fuller picture of what's happening in Iraq and how the world is reacting to it:

* Don't rely on one source for your news on Iraq. Look at a variety of press venues, including television, newspapers, magazines and Internet news sites.

* Get an idea how the rest of the world looks at the same news events. For example, an Arab perspective can be found at www.arabicnews.com. Most major British and European newspapers also can be found online, including the French newspaper Le Monde (English language edition) at http://mondediplo.com and The Times of London at www.timesonline.co.uk.

* Read, listen and view the news critically. Do you see any particular slant in the news presentation? Beware of news sources that paint something as complex as the Iraq war in simplistic terms.

* After sifting through a variety of news sources, make up your own mind about news events. Don't blindly accept everything you see or read.

WASHINGTON -- Whenever the United States has been on the brink of war during the past three decades, presidents, lawmakers and generals have asked themselves the same question.

Army Gen. Hugh H. Shelton asked it in a speech at Harvard University in 1999: "Is the American public prepared for the sight of our most precious resources coming home in flag-draped caskets into Dover Air Force Base?"

Despite more than 400 U.S. fatalities in the Iraq war, the public has not seen a single flag-draped military casket at Dover Air Force Base, where U.S. war dead usually arrive on their journey home.

Military officials say a more than decade-old ban on press photography at the base is to spare the feelings of military families. Critics say it also benefits President Bush by suppressing powerful images of death.

At issue is whether the American people are getting a full picture of the costs of war. "This administration says the policy is designed with the sensitivities of families in mind," said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., a Vietnam War veteran.

"My guess is that it has at least as much to do with their concern over the waning of support in Iraq." The ban on press and public access to the returning caskets has been in effect since 1991. Although the ban is not new, Bush has been criticized for failing to lift it or to attend funerals for fallen soldiers.

"Our president has refused to attend a single funeral for a single soldier killed in Iraq," said retired NATO Gen. Wesley Clark, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. "Even worse, he's banned media coverage and proper public ceremonies for deceased soldiers returning from the war -- the kind of cover-up tactics we saw during Vietnam."

White House spokesman Allen Abney said the policy came from the Department of Defense, not the White House. Bush has visited military bases and has spoken often of the war dead and the sacrifice they have made.

"The president has said, 'We mourn every loss, honor every name and grieve with every family,' " Abney said. At the same time, Bush has complained that the press has focused too much on the casualties of war while failing to show positive images of Iraqi schools and hospitals being rebuilt.

Every president who governs in wartime has tried to control the images of war to emphasize patriotism and victory over setbacks and death, communications experts say, and this administration is no exception.

The president's father, former President George H.W. Bush, reportedly called for the ban on photographs at Dover Air Force Base during the Persian Gulf War after a television network aired split-screen images showing Bush golfing while caskets were arriving at the base.

"The White House, as you might imagine, was furious. It felt that journalists were simply out to get the president," said Marvin Kalb, a former TV news correspondent who is now a senior fellow with the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. The ban continued through President Clinton's eight years in office and into this Bush administration.

On the eve of the U.S. war with Iraq in March, the Pentagon reiterated the Dover ban and began enforcing it at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Those bases had often allowed photographs and public ceremonies even when they were banned at Dover, said 1st Lt. Olivia Nelson, a spokeswoman for Dover Air Force Base.

"It was about consistency -- making sure that all U.S. bases were following the rules that Dover has been following for years," Nelson said. J. Gregory Payne, director of the center for ethics in political communication at Emerson College in Boston, sees another motive. "They don't want the message that we're winning and we'll be getting out (of Iraq) to be surpassed by the power of these images of coffins," Payne said. "The White House is trying to stifle the emotional impact of dead Americans, but it's still seeping through with local stories about hometown soldiers who have died."

In many ways, those stories -- which typically feature photos of the young soldiers when they were alive and happy -- are more powerful than pictures of caskets, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. "Actually, the pictures of them alive increase your sense of loss because the loss becomes more personal," Jamieson said.

In the end, presidents' attempts to control the images of war are seldom successful, experts say. Case in point: Bush's May 1 speech declaring major combat over in Iraq from aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier was seen as a positive image at the time. But even his supporters say it has backfired as casualties mount.

"The administration cannot tell us what we can and cannot publish," David Boardman, managing editor at The Seattle Times, told E&P Monday afternoon. "The photo may have been seen as an unnecessarily provocative anti-war sentiment," Boardman said, but he explained, "We weren't attempting to convey any sort of political message." He added that so far, phone calls and e-mails from readers have been "overwhelmingly positive."

The image used was not taken by a journalist, but by a Seattle-area resident working on contract at the U.S. military section of Kuwait International Airport. The photo depicts several flag-draped coffins being loaded into a cargo plane for the trip home. The Times received the picture in the middle of last week but waited to publish until its context could be determined.

"We wanted to make sure we understood and respected the circumstances and spirit in which the photograph was taken," said Cole Porter, the paper's photo director. "We found it was taken out of respect for the process and the dignity with which the soldiers remains are treated."

In an accompanying article published in the Times, staff reporter Hal Bernton explained the rituals involving "prayers, salutes and hands on hearts" before the caskets are placed in cargo holds for a flight to Germany. "Everyone salutes with such emotion and intensity and respect," said Tami Silicio, the woman who took the picture, in Sunday's story. "The families would be proud to see their sons and daughters saluted like that."

While the paper was mindful some readers would be offended by the image, it still saw good reason to publish it. "This picture gives our readers a look at a view of the war that until now we have been unable to provide them," Porter said.

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Charles Geraci (cgeraci@editorandpublisher.com) is a reporter for E&P.

 SEATTLE -- A military contractor fired two cargo workers responsible for a photograph of flag-draped coffins of U.S. soldiers that appeared on a newspaper's front page.

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