Ban on Flag Draped Coffins to be Lifted

The DoD apparently didn't confirm the information, but it is generally accepted that the ban was initiated after the December 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama to depose Dictator Manuel Noriega.

Some photos have been taken and smuggled out for publishing long before the lifting of the ban; making the law futile at best in the first place.

(WASHINGTON D.C.) - The Pentagon is lifting a Bush Administration ban on media coverage of the flag-draped coffins of war casualties killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is welcome news to countless Americans who have had the reality of war officially blocked from view by an administration bent on public perception.

The Vietnam War grew extremely unpopular in the 1960's and 1970's as young Americans were killed and sent home in flag draped coffins.

In fact, Bush Administration official L. Paul Premer III, tried to make the point in his book that media coverage showed the "negative" side of the mission in Iraq and was counterproductive to the war effort.

In other words, Bremmer would liked to have put the kibosh on almost all coverage of the war. The federal ban on showing the coffins was obviously part of the same strategy.

CNN reports that Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered a review after President Obama asked for more information on the long-standing policy.

The DoD apparently didn't confirm the information with CNN's reporters, but it is generally accepted that the ban was initiated after the December 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama to depose Dictator Manuel Noriega.

A family member of one of the fallen who wants the ban lifted is San Francisco resident Karen Meredith. She is one of the people who wrote to President Obama urging him to order the change. She last saw her son, Lt. Ken Ballard, on Mother's Day in 2003 just before he shipped off to Iraq. He came home in a casket in 2004, on Memorial Day.

"I wanted the nation to grieve with me, and if we don't see those images we don't know that these young men and women are dying," she told CNN.

Other people CNN spoke to say the honor should remain private.

"When they come off the plane, these are anonymous caskets. What is the greater good of that," asked Vince Rangel, who was an Army Ranger captain in Vietnam.

He said he would rather see the attention go to gravesites in the communities where information on the people who died is available.