Gates open to lifting ban on casket photos - Military News | News From Afghanistan, Iraq And Around The World - Military Times

Gates open to lifting ban on casket photos

The controversial policy that bans media coverage of flag-draped caskets arriving from the war theater to Dover Air Force Base, Del., is once again being reviewed with an eye toward reversal, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday.

“If the needs of the families can be met, and the privacy concerns can be addressed, the more honor we can accord these fallen heroes, the better,” Gates said at a Pentagon news conference. “I’m ... pretty open to, to whatever the results of this review may be.”

Gates said he ordered the review after President Barack Obama said Monday night during a nationally broadcast news conference that the White House is “in the process of reviewing those policies.”

Gates said he has put a “fairly short deadline on that effort,” but was not more specific.

Gates, a Bush administration holdover who has served in the Pentagon’s top job since December 2006, said he looked into changing the policy a little over a year ago.

He said the answer he received, partly the result of talks with family members of fallen troops, was that if reporters and photographers were allowed to view the return of flag-draped caskets at Dover, “many of the families would feel compelled to be there for those ceremonies for their fallen hero.”

“For these families, this would delay the return of the remains home,” he said. “For others, it would be a financial hardship to get to Dover. And there were some privacy concerns.”

But, Gates added, “I think that looking at it again makes all kinds of sense.”

Media coverage of military remains arriving at ports of entry was once permitted but came to a halt by Pentagon decree during the 1991 Gulf War, on Feb. 2, 1991.

Exceptions have been made over the years, such as when the media photographed a ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., for Americans killed in the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. In October 2000, the Pentagon distributed photos of caskets arriving at Dover that contained the remains of sailors killed in the bombing of the USS Cole.

In 2004, a “Sense of Congress” resolution included in the 2005 budget stated that the Pentagon policy “appropriately protects the privacy of the families and friends of the deceased.”

Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., has taken the opposite view — that photos of returning caskets both honor the returning service member and remind the public that the nation is at war.

In January, Jones introduced the “Fallen Hero Commemoration Act,” legislation that would force the Pentagon to grant the media access when military remains arrive at U.S. military installations.

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