Pentagon lifts media ban on war coffins
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Defense Secretary Robert Gates has decided to lift the ban on news organizations photographing the homecomings of U.S. war dead and will instead leave the decision entirely up to the families, Pentagon sources said Thursday.
Gates said earlier this month that he was reviewing the ban, and signaled that he was likely to recommend overturning the policy, saying that if "privacy concerns can be addressed, the more honor we can accord these fallen heroes, the better."
Gates was to formally make the announcement later Thursday, the sources said.
Air Force cargo planes carrying the war dead home land on the tarmac at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware where a solemn ritual is performed: The anonymous coffins known as "transfer cases," each sealed in the Stars and Stripes and marked with a tag, are unloaded, ultimately to be delivered back to their loved ones for burial.
President Barack Obama had earlier said he was considering lifting the controversial ban, which kept the media and photographers away since the 1991 Gulf War.
Some in the U.S. media have argued that the rule is a political attempt to downplay the cost of war — which include at least 4,245 members of the U.S. military who have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003 — especially in light of images from Vietnam that some credit with turning U.S. opinion against that war.
Obama swept into office in part on campaign promises of greater transparency than the Bush administration.
Opponents of the ban argue Americans have a responsibility to pay their respects and consider the reality of being a nation at war when its military is all-volunteer and most people are insulated from the destruction...
Gates said earlier this month that he was reviewing the ban, and signaled that he was likely to recommend overturning the policy, saying that if "privacy concerns can be addressed, the more honor we can accord these fallen heroes, the better."
Gates was to formally make the announcement later Thursday, the sources said.
Air Force cargo planes carrying the war dead home land on the tarmac at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware where a solemn ritual is performed: The anonymous coffins known as "transfer cases," each sealed in the Stars and Stripes and marked with a tag, are unloaded, ultimately to be delivered back to their loved ones for burial.
President Barack Obama had earlier said he was considering lifting the controversial ban, which kept the media and photographers away since the 1991 Gulf War.
Some in the U.S. media have argued that the rule is a political attempt to downplay the cost of war — which include at least 4,245 members of the U.S. military who have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003 — especially in light of images from Vietnam that some credit with turning U.S. opinion against that war.
Obama swept into office in part on campaign promises of greater transparency than the Bush administration.
Opponents of the ban argue Americans have a responsibility to pay their respects and consider the reality of being a nation at war when its military is all-volunteer and most people are insulated from the destruction...
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earrachanam
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well josh you beat me to posting this! greenlighted!
- 3 years ago
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earrachanam
