US opinion divided over website images of coffins

American opinion was divided yesterday over the publication on a website of more than 350 pictures of the dead returning to the Dover air force base in Delaware.

While the Pentagon insisted there was an established prohibition out of respect to relatives, the New York Times and Washington Post both featured them on their front pages.

The controversy began earlier this week, when a paper published a picture taken by a civilian contractor of coffins being loaded on to a transporter plane in Kuwait. The worker was subsequently sacked.

Until this week, the Pentagon had succeeded in preventing the publication of images showing the repatriation of the 706 US soldiers killed in Iraq since the start of the war.

"It showed the great care taken to honour the fallen soldiers," said Leon Espinoza, news editor of the Seattle Times, "and it can’t help but show the toll a war takes."

However, a website established to preserve documents and photographs that are in danger of being lost had applied separately to the air force under freedom of information legislation for any photographs of returning dead that existed. After initially being turned down, the request was approved on appeal.

This was despite the Pentagon issuing a statement last year stating that "there will be no arrival ceremonies for, or media coverage of, deceased military personnel returning to or departing from Ramstein [Germany] airbase or Dover base, to include interim stops".

The Pentagon has consistently argued that publication of such photographs invades the privacy of deceased servicemen’s families.

John Molino, a deputy under-secretary of defence who oversees the policy, said: "We don’t want the remains of our service members who have made the ultimate sacrifice to be the subject of any kind of attention that is unwarranted or undignified."

The policy of not allowing pictures of coffins arriving in the US dates from the 1991 Gulf war but was frequently unenforced during the Clinton administration’s eight years in office.

During the Vietnam War, the Pentagon, in an effort to minimise the adverse impact such pictures might have on public morale, ensured that flights carrying the remains of dead servicemen arrived in the middle of the night.

Russ Kick, the creator and editor of thememoryhole.org said that his initial request for permission to publish the pictures had been denied.

"I appealed on several grounds and to my amazement the ruling was reversed," he said.

"The air force then sent me a CD containing 361 photographs of flag-draped coffins and the services welcoming the deceased soldiers."

On Thursday, the photographs were published on the website.

Steve Capus, executive producer of NBC news, commented: "It would seem that the only reason somebody would come out against the use of these pictures is that they are worried about the political fallout."

The government’s attitude to the photographs contrasted markedly with the return this week of the soldiers who captured Saddam.

The men from the 4th Infantry Division burst through the doors of a hanger at Fort Hood, Texas, in a cloud of dry ice, to be welcomed by family and friends.

It was the sort of stage-managed homecoming that the Pentagon and White House tend to prefer.