While the 'spam' from the Barnes Review might be linked with a 'neo-nazi' website, the issue of how many soldiers have been killed in Iraq still remains. Since the beginning of the war, people have known that the secrecy which was demanded surrounding the number of dead enabled the Bush Administration to lie about the 'true costs of war'. He banned photos and visitors from the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base at the start of the war, presumably because dad had gotten offended by an interview on television which split-screened his face and a coffin from DAFB. While the idea that pictures of dead coffins will have a negative effect on public opinion might be true, the real problem is and has been the cloaking of the number of troops who have died. Photos? A good cover-up story. Forget about the photos of dead and burned people in Iraq. Somehow the media seems to have forgotten about this ban and/or haven't gotten around yet to an intensive investigative effort to reveal the real numbers. At the bottom of the page is a recent interview with Senator Biden, who discusses how Senators aren't even allowed in the mortuary at DAFB. With such enormous restrictions regarding such a seemingly simple matter -- photos of coffins -- a more difficult to prove one like the actual number of dead troops, becomes even more impossible until the Bush Administration and the Pentagon open their books or people start demanding an investigation by the Senate, which has been barred access.


Curtains Ordered for Media Coverage of Returning Coffins

". . . in early 1991, at the time of the Persian Gulf War, the Pentagon said there would be no more media coverage of coffins returning to Dover, the main arrival point; a year earlier, Bush was angered when television networks showed him giving a news briefing on a split screen with caskets arriving."

" In January 2000, then Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Henry Shelton told an audience at Harvard that before committing troops, politicians should make sure a war can pass what he called the "Dover test," so named for the Air Force base in Delaware where fallen soldiers' coffins return. Shelton said politicians must weigh military actions against whether the public is "prepared for the sight of our most precious resource coming home in flag-draped caskets." (Salon.com, see below)

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PBS, June 2004

"But on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March of last year, the Bush administration reinstalled a ban on pictures of the arrival of war coffins and expanded it to include all U.S. bases. No more pictures like these of arriving coffins. Some Americans say the ban allows the administration to hide the body count of the Iraq war."

"Others, like Kirk Morris of Gurnee, Illinois, say the blackout prevents a media circus at a very tragic and private moment for the families."

"Officials say the photo ban is in deference to the privacy and the sensitivity of the families of the fallen. And, that President Bush believes we should honor and show respect for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice."

Kirk Morris, father of killed soldier Geoffrey Morris asked: "Do we need to see the bodies to know the numbers? I believe these pictures give the potential of a narrow-minded general public, the impression that young men are dying, therefore we need to pull out. Not [that] young men are dying because the cost of freedom is so high."

Mother of killed soldier Jonathan Langley, Vicky, "believes the administration is deliberately censoring pictures of her son Jonathan's coffin, as with all the others. According to a recent NEW YORK TIMES poll, 62 percent of Americans think the public should be allowed to see pictures of coffins of soldiers killed in Iraq."

"Dr. SAM HOFF (History Professor, Delaware State University): There is one thing that doesn't lie. The caskets don't lie."

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The Invisible Wounded, Salon.com, 3/8/2005

"But reporting on the size, scope or mounting cost of the war -- like pictures of incoming caskets or the seemingly endless stream of stretchers arriving at Walter Reed -- is almost impossible because of Pentagon restrictions."

Military Families Call on Bush Administration: Start Telling the Truth, Stop Hiding the Toll, Bring an End to Iraq War

All the way back in March 2004, protesters were calling for an end to the secrecy at Dover Air Force Base.

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Senators Cannot Meet Iraq War dead For a transcript got to (pdf)

In a recent broadcast of Face the Nation on CBS, from June 19, 2005, Senator Biden discussed the fact that Senators were not allowed to view the coffins in the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base. He recently had to get special permission to view a

"SCHIEFFER: You talk about not fully informing the American people. There's no question that the administration has at least discouraged people from reporting on casualties there. For example, the casualties all the people who have been killed in Iraq come back through the...

Sen. BIDEN: True.

SCHIEFFER: ...Air Force base in Delaware.

Sen. BIDEN: In Dover.

SCHIEFFER: Do you ever go out to meet those flights out there?


Sen. BIDEN: I've tried to and they will not allow me to. As a matter of fact...

SCHIEFFER: Who will not allow you to?

Sen. BIDEN: The Defense Department. Look...

SCHIEFFER: Wait a minute. You're a United States senator.

Sen. BIDEN: I'm a United States senator. Well, let me be very...

SCHIEFFER: They're not letting you on a military base?

Sen. BIDEN: I'm allowed in the military base. I'm not allowed to go to the mortuary. I'm not allowed to be there when the flag-draped casket comes in. As a matter of fact, Bob, one family asked me whether I would meet their son who was tragically gunned down, actually car bomb in Iraq. This is several months ago. I said I would be honored to be with them. They wanted me to come with the minister. They wanted me through the whole process. The commander of the base told me that he couldn't allow that to happen and he's a friend--this is not like there's no hostility there; I'm on the base all the time--until he cleared it with the Pentagon. And I'm told the civilian leadership in the Pentagon.
So in order for me to literally go in and accompany a mom and a dad and a son to pick up the body of a dead son, a young Marine killed in Iraq, I was not just able to do it as a senior United States senator, former chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee--not like I'm new to this. I had to get specific permission for that specific event. I wanted to go when more than one Marine came back dead and I just wanted to show my respect. I didn't want any press there. There was no press. We weren't talking about that.
SCHIEFFER: So you think it is the secretary of Defense himself who's blocking you?

Sen. BIDEN: Well, that's my understanding. I don't know that for a fact, but it's not the
military. It's the civilian decision in the Defense Department that you're not allowed to be
there just to show respects. And let me emphasize here now. No press. No cameras. Nothing."