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U.S., media fight battle of images
White House ban on photographs of slain soldiers questioned by many.

The U.S. military is enforcing its ban on news photographs of military caskets at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. President Bush has been criticized for failure to lift the ban and attend funerals of soldiers. Susan L. Gregg / Gannett News Service

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 the current 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 ban continued through President Clinton's eight years in office and into the current Bush administration.

On the eve of the U.S. war with Iraq last 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.

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.

"I think people viewed that — and the 'Mission Accomplished' banner that hung behind him during the speech — and we all concluded that the war is over," said Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del. "I don't think we thought that six months later we'd still be getting reports on almost a daily basis of American soldiers being attacked."