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>>> Since March 2003, a newly-enforced military regulation has forbidden taking or distributing images
of caskets or body tubes containing the remains of soldiers who died overseas.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A55816-2003Oct20¬Found=true

Curtains Ordered for Media Coverage of Returning Coffins

By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, October 21, 2003; Page A23

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 airbase or Dover 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."

President Bush's opponents say he is trying to keep the spotlight off the fatalities in Iraq.
"This administration manipulates information and takes great care to manage events,
and sometimes that goes too far," said Joe Lockhart,
who as White House press secretary joined President Bill Clinton at several ceremonies
for returning remains.
"For them to sit there and make a political decision because this hurts them politically
-- I'm outraged."

Pentagon officials deny that. Speaking on condition of anonymity, they said the policy
covering the entire military followed a victory over a civil liberties court challenge
to the restrictions at Dover and relieves all bases of the difficult logistics of assembling
family members and deciding which troops should get which types of ceremonies.

One official said only individual graveside services, open to cameras at the discretion
of relatives, give "the full context" of a soldier's sacrifice.
"To do it at several stops along the way doesn't tell the full story and isn't representative,"
the official said.

A White House spokesman said Bush has not attended any memorials or funerals for soldiers
killed in action during his presidency...

-------------------------------
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/coffin_photos/dover/
snip-->
"Immediately after hearing about this, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the following:

All photographs showing caskets (or other devices) containing the remains of US military
personnel at Dover AFB.
This would include, but not be limited to, caskets arriving, caskets departing,
and any funerary rites/rituals being performed.
The timeframe for these photos is from 01 February 2003 to the present.

I specified Dover because they process the remains of most, if not all,
US military personnel killed overseas.
Not surpisingly, my request was completely rejected. Not taking 'no' for an answer,
I appealed on several grounds, and—to my amazement—the ruling was reversed.
The Air Force then sent me a CD containing 361 photographs of flag-draped coffins
and the services welcoming the deceased soldiers.

Score one for freedom of information and the public's right to know."

Military Coffins: The Photos You're Not Supposed to See

Edited to Add:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB152/index.htm

Return of the Fallen
PENTAGON RELEASES HUNDREDS MORE WAR CASUALTY HOMECOMING IMAGES
(after losing another lawsuit)
"Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005 -

In response to Freedom of Information Act requests and a lawsuit, the Pentagon this week released hundreds of previously secret images of casualties returning to honor guard ceremonies from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and other conflicts, confirming that images of their flag-draped coffins are rightfully part of the public record, despite its earlier insistence that such images should be kept secret.

One year after the start of a series of Freedom of Information Act requests filed by University of Delaware Professor Ralph Begleiter with the assistance of the National Security Archive, and six months after a lawsuit charging the Pentagon with failing to comply with the Act, the Pentagon made public more than 700 images of the return of American casualties to Dover Air Force Base and other U.S. military facilities, where the fallen troops received honor guard ceremonies. The Pentagon officially refers to the photos as "images of the memorial and arrival ceremonies for deceased military personnel arriving from overseas." Many of the images show evidence of censorship, which the Pentagon says is intended to conceal identifiable personal information of military personnel involved in the homecoming ceremonies.

Begleiter's lawsuit is supported by the National Security Archive and the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm Jenner & Block. "This is an important victory for the American people, for the families of troops killed in the line of duty during wartime, and for the honor of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country," said Begleiter, a former CNN Washington correspondent who teaches journalism and political science at the University of Delaware.

"This significant decision by the Pentagon should make it difficult, if not impossible,
for any U.S. government in the future to hide the human cost of war from the American people."

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