"It's Clinton's fault!" - Again! [View All]

[Grins]

Well, looks like Bill did it again. Out of office for almost 3 years and still causing trouble.

“Since the end of the Vietnam War, presidents have worried that their military actions would lose support once the public glimpsed the remains of U.S. soldiers arriving at air bases in flag-draped caskets. To this problem, the Bush administration has found a simple solution: It has ended the public dissemination of such images by banning news coverage and photography of dead soldiers' homecomings on all military bases.

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."

President Bush's opponents say he is trying to keep the spotlight off the fatalities in Iraq. "This administration manipulates information and takes great care to manage events, and sometimes that goes too far," said Joe Lockhart, who as White House press secretary joined President Bill Clinton at several ceremonies for returning remains. "For them to sit there and make a political decision because this hurts them politically -- I'm outraged."

To be fair, the Pentagon made denials, but only spoke on condition of anonymity. But why would they feel they have to hide their identities to explain their own policy? A state secret?

Does the Bush administration ever take responsibility for anything?

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55816-2003Oct20.html>