Dead Wrong

The Bush Campaign's decision to include an image of a flag-covered body being removed from the World Trade Center site in a commercial is especially disturbing in light of the administration's refusal to allow coverage of the bodies of soldiers being returned to the United States. While this policy has been "on the books" since the first Bush administration (when Bush Sr. was shown in a split-screen image playing golf alongside flag-draped coffins) it is only during the current Bush administration that the policy has been enforced with any regularity. This CNN transcript provides helpful context:

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Dead American soldiers returning home from war in flagged-draped coffins. It's an emotional, painful scene that you are not seeing in the latest conflict in Iraq. That's because the Pentagon bars the media from recording the return of American troops killed in action.

It's a policy that angers some critics. They charge the administration is trying to soft-pedal the realities of war.

Joining us now to explain the policy and answer some of these critics is Bryan Whitman, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Public Affairs. Bryan, thanks very much for joining us. This is a policy, just to be honest with our viewers, that goes back a long time.

BRYAN WHITMAN, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: That's correct, Wolf. This a policy that's over a decade old. It's a policy that has been the policy of several administrations. And it is not new.

BLITZER: I remember you and I were there together in the Pentagon in those days just before the first Gulf War, more than a dozen years ago. At that time, the defense secretary was Dick Cheney. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs was Colin Powell. At that time, they decided that there would be no coverage, no cameras at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware bringing coffins home.

There was deep concern at that time that those images could undermine morale on the home front. Isn't that right?

WHITMAN: Well, I don't think that's the real reason. The underlying reason is, you know, there is nothing more important that this nation can do than to honor its war dead, to honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms that we enjoy. Over time, though, we have determined that the most appropriate place to render those kind of honors is at the graveside. And at the graveside, because that is where family and friends, that is where members of the unit, and that's where the news media can gather together to honor these great American heroes.

Two points are critical here. The first is that high-ranking officials within BOTH Bush administrations (namely Rumsfeld and Powell) are responsible for the policy -- so this administration is not at liberty to argue that the Pentagon policy is in any way at odds with its wishes. The second point is that while the Pentagon, at the direction of the Bush administration, has determined to enforce the ban on coverage of flag-draped remains of soldiers because those deaths can only be properly acknowledged at graveside, the administration somehow deems it appropriate to depict a civilian body in a commercial.

If anything, civilian casualties should be accorded an even higher level of privacy and protection than the military casualties. Soldiers assume tremendous levels of risk, and do so publicly and with the understanding and (one would hope) support of their friends and loved ones. When a soldier dies, the American public has a legitimate interest in the story being covered, as we are all participants (or should be) in shaping the policies that place soldiers in harm's way. Accurate reporting of the casualties of war is critical to the American public being able to make informed decisions about how and whether to wage war.

With respect to the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, no public commitment to service (and its attendant risks) occurred. The victims of the 9/11 attacks were simply at their workplaces, or going about their days. While Americans have an obligation to understand, in all its awful clarity, the magnitude of the losses endured on that day, this ought not involve the tawdry and invasive depiction of victim's bodies as props. And this is epecially true when the Bush administration has proven itself willing to shield the public from this sort of depiction when the administration's aims are served by such a prohibition.