Don't mention the dead When the body of US soldier Artimus Brassfield was flown to the military mortuary at Dover, Delaware, there were no TV pictures of a flag-covered coffin and hero's salute - the White House has banned media coverage at the base. But can Bush's efforts to hide the body bags quell growing public disquiet over the death toll in Iraq? Gary Younge reports.
Friday November 7, 2003
The Guardian
When the silver casket lid went down on Artimus Brassfield a reflexive, convulsive sob echoed through Ebenezer ministries. In the seconds it took for the coffin to be draped with the American flag, Pastor Seon Thompson reminded the congregation that this was a celebration of his life. By the time the drummer had given them the beat for "He's gone to be a soldier in the army of the lord," they had found their voice.
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For years political orthodoxy had it that America would no longer know days like these. Not because it was shy about going to war, but because after Vietnam it was determined not to incur large numbers of casualties in doing so. The US military would bomb from a great height or use proxies to enforce its will. Public opinion would endorse the country's involvement in most military conflicts, so long as the nation did not have to endure the sight of its young men and women coming home in body bags. As Henry Shelton, the chairman of the joint chiefs-of-staff, said in 1999, a decision to use military force is based in part on whether it will pass "the Dover test" - public reaction to bodies arriving at the country's only military mortuary in Dover, Delaware.
Dr Joseph Dawson, a military historian at Texas A&M university, says the American public's response to casualties is qualified by what they believe the soldiers are fighting for. "If the cause seems significant enough then Americans will bear the loss," he says, pointing to the huge death tolls in the second world war and the civil war. "But if the cause no longer appears to be significant they will not. It's still rather too early to read public opinion about this cause."
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Bush writes to each family, but his friends say he was offended by what he regarded as Clinton's occasionally gushing public performances, which he felt turned private grief into political gain. The trouble for Bush is that the public liked Clinton for his ability to empathise.
Bush's apparent reluctance to publicly identify with the dead is beginning to look like a desire to disassociate himself from the failure of the mission. When news of the downed Chinook came through on Sunday he stayed in his ranch and let defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld meet the press.
"The public wants the commander-in-chief to have proper perspective and keep his eye on the big picture and the ball," says Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director. "At the same time, they want their president to understand the hardship and sacrifice many Americans are enduring at a time of war. And we believe he is striking that balance."
Others disagree. They say the growing number of casualties is the ball, which is precisely why the Pentagon enforced the ban on coverage at Dover. "You can call it news control or information control of flat-out propaganda," says Christopher Simpson, a communications professor at Washington's American University. "Whatever you call it, this is the most extensive effort at spinning a war that the department of defence has ever undertaken in this country. Casualties are a very important media football in any war
this is a qualitative change."
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