Reply #7: Later in the WP article, they even go so far as to blame Clinton.

[VolcanoJen]

A Pentagon spokeswoman said the military-wide policy actually dates from about November 2000 -- the last days of the Clinton administration -- but it apparently went unheeded and unenforced, as images of caskets returning from the Afghanistan war appeared on television broadcasts and in newspapers until early this year. Though Dover Air Force Base, which has the military's largest mortuary, has had restrictions for 12 years, others "may not have been familiar with the policy," the spokeswoman said. This year, "we've really tried to enforce it."

Still later in the piece, they dug up a quote from old favorite (and vigiliant decorated General Wesley Clark-hater), former Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Henry Shelton, even gave us a neato, hip buzz phrase for the phenomenon in which Americans grieve their war dead, calling it "The Dover Test:"

The Pentagon has previously acknowledged the effect on public opinion of the grim tableau of caskets being carried from transport planes to hangars or hearses. In 1999, the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Henry H. Shelton, said a decision to use military force is based in part on whether it will pass "the Dover test," as the public reacts to fatalities.

Nice try, and we all realize the "Blame Clinton!" line works on most people, but it didn't work on us, not now, not ever. Later the article supplies examples of Clinton visiting the arrival of coffins during his terms, saying, "But the photos of coffins arriving at Andrews and elsewhere continued to appear through the Clinton administration. In 1996, Dover made an exception to allow filming of Clinton's visit to welcome the 33 caskets with remains from Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown's plane crash. In 1998, Clinton went to Andrews to see the coffins of Americans killed in the terrorist bombing in Nairobi. Dover also allowed public distribution of photos of the homecoming caskets after the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in 2000."

The photos of coffins continued for the first two years of the current Bush administration, from Ramstein and other bases. Then, on the eve of the Iraq invasion, word came from the Pentagon that other bases were to adopt Dover's policy of making the arrival ceremonies off limits.



Welcome to Dover Air Force Base. Bush is President now, so hand me that camera, and don't speak of what you saw here.