This undated handout photo originally provided by the U.S. Air Force and posted on www.thememoryhole.org, shows flag-draped coffins of U.S. casualties from Iraq being offloaded by a military honor guard from a cargo plane in Dover, Delaware.
The Defense Department this week lifted an 18-year-old ban on the news media photographing the flag-draped caskets of fallen U.S. soldiers at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Defense Secretary Robert Gates decided to allow photos of the caskets if the families of the dead agree.
Gates' decision overturned a ban put in place in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush. Critics of the ban charged that it was being used to hide the true cost of war from the American public.
“I have decided that the decision regarding media coverage of the dignified transfer process at Dover should be made by those most directly affected - on an individual basis - by the families of the fallen,” Gates said at a Pentagon news conference.
“We ought not to presume to make that decision in their place,” added Gates, who reviewed the policy at the request of President Obama.
Gates said he first broached the idea of listing the ban last year but met with resistance from within the Pentagon. “I had asked about changing the policy in Dover over a year ago and, although when I got the response that I did - which recommended no change - I accepted that at the time,” he said. “I must say I was never comfortable with it.”
Journalism organizations, including the Society of Professional Journalists, had long advocated lifting the ban.
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Photo by Thememoryhole.org via Getty Images
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