Website defies US on bodies

2004-04-23 12:37

Washington - Photos of flag-draped caskets bearing the remains of US soldiers killed in Iraq are being shown on the internet against Pentagon protocol after they were published in the Seattle Times last weekend.

"The (US Defence) Department's policy regarding no media coverage of remains transfer has been in effect since 1991," a Pentagon spokesperson said on Wednesday.

"The principal focus and purpose of the policy is to protect the wishes and the privacy of the families during their time of greatest loss and grief," he said.

Tami Silicio, an employee with an army subcontractor, secretly took the photographs of coffins draped in the US flag as they were transferred inside a US Air Force transport aeroplane in Kuwait, the newspaper said.

She was fired

Silicio was fired after she gave the photos to the newspaper.

A total of 360 photos taken by the Air Force at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where many of the coffins have been repatriated, were released to the website www.thememoryhole.org by the Pentagon after the site requested them under the Freedom of Information Act.

"The photos will not be released through Air Force channels," said Air Force Lieutenant-Colonel Jennifer Cassidy, adding that requests for their release could be made under the same act.

The government of President George W Bush firmly reminded the news media of the policy of not photographing coffins in March 2003, shortly after the start of the Iraq war.

John Molino, Deputy Under Secretary of Defence for Military Community and Family Policy, said the Pentagon's policy "reflects what families want".

Opponents of the war have largely been critical of the armed forces' policy relating to the pictures of coffins, which they see as a government attempt to lessen the impact of the loss of US lives on public opinion.

- AFP