Editorial: Pictures of War Dead

The Obama administration made the right decision in lifting an 18-year ban on news coverage of the return of fallen U.S. soldiers to Dover Air Force Base.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he was reversing the news blackout because "we should not presume to make the decision for the families." The ban on photographs has been in place through Republican and Democratic administrations since 1991. President Obama recently asked Gates to review the policy.

The new policy isn't in place yet. But Gates promised to give families a choice of whether to admit the media to ceremonies at Dover, the entry point for the caskets of overseas war dead.

That's a key point, because not all military families agree on how to handle the subject. Some relatives believe allowing photographs is an exploitation of their loss to stir up antiwar sentiment. Other families feel that photographs honor the military dead, and that the ban hid their loss.

Still others believe that the public too easily forgets about soldiers' sacrifices and the war itself unless such photographs are permitted.

"We should honor, not hide, flag-draped coffins," said Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.). "They are a symbol of the respect, honor and dignity that our fallen heroes deserve."

President Bush kept the ban in place, he said, because allowing photographs could pressure families to attend the event although they might not be able to afford the trip to Delaware. Critics accused Bush of trying to censor the impact of the war.

As of this week, at least 4,251 U.S. service members had died in the Iraq war since March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 584 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan since 2001.

The photographs should be allowed because the public should be able to see the human cost of war. Casualty reports don't tell the whole story of the sacrifice that so many soldiers and Marines, and their families, have made.