【路透】媒体不许报道“海豹突击队”遗体，干涉新闻自由

corie_zhu

http://www.reuters.com/article/2 ... edName=domesticNews

No media coverage of returning U.S. troop remains

The Pentagon said Monday that news media will not be able to cover the return of the remains of 30 U.S. troops killed when militants shot down their helicopter in Afghanistan over the weekend.

President Barack Obama's administration relaxed an 18-year Pentagon ban on media coverage of returning U.S. war dead in February 2009, giving grieving families the choice of whether to allow cameras at the solemn arrival ceremony.

But the Pentagon said Monday the catastrophic nature of the crash created a special situation, one in which families would be unable to give media permission to document the event because remains were so far unidentified.

Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan denied there was any departure from past policy.

"The instance that we have here is unidentifiable remains. So the families cannot give permission to anybody for media access to their loved one -- because they don't know it's their loved one," Lapan told reporters at the Pentagon.

"They don't know with any certainty who is in that transfer case."

It was not immediately clear whether families had been asked if they would allow media access to the event.

The incident, the deadliest for U.S. troops since the war began nearly a decade ago, has generated considerable U.S. media interest. Obama made a televised tribute to those killed Monday.

With the bodies expected to return to the United States on Tuesday, there has been speculation top officials might travel to Dover Air Force Base to pay tribute to the service members.

Obama visited the base in 2009 to honor 18 Americans killed in Afghanistan.

"If there were any -- any -- identifiable remains in this group -- five of them, three of them, one of them -- and the family said 'yes,' there would be coverage," Lapan said.

"We're only in this position because there are no identifiable remains."

Obama's decision to relax the 1991 ban was cheered by press freedom groups. The ban was imposed during the first Gulf War with some exceptions, including the return of Navy seamen killed during the attack on the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden in October 2000.

Former President George W. Bush imposed a stricter ban during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, sparking criticism that the federal government was hiding the human cost of its military operations.

Nearly 4,500 U.S. service members have died in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, and more than 1,500 have been killed in Afghanistan since U.S. forces went there to oust the Taliban in late 2001 following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

lilyma06

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