October 27, 2003	Monday	Sha’aban 30, 1424

NEW YORK: With the post-war US combat toll in Iraq rising at an almost daily rate, debate is growing at home over media coverage of an issue with the potential to radically dent support for the Iraq campaign.

Ever since Vietnam, the “bodybag factor” has loomed large in the planning and running of any overseas US military operation, in the knowledge that public opinion can shift swiftly and dramatically if the death toll is deemed too costly.

The number of Americans who have died in combat in Iraq since US President George W. Bush declared an end to major hostilities on May 1 crossed the 100-mark last week.

That figure does not include those killed in non-combat situations, such as road accidents or suicides. Taking those into account, a total of more than

200 Americans have died since May 1.

Conservatives insist the media has a morbid obsession with the casualty toll, while liberal analysts argue that television and newspapers have been intimidated by the Bush administration into downplaying the issue.

“It’s an old fight that goes back to the myth that the war in Vietnam was lost because of coverage that was too graphic and negative,” said Mark Miller, a professor of media studies at New York University.

Most analysts agree that the major television networks, while reporting the combat deaths as they happen, have kept the issue on the back burner.

“In the beginning, the coverage was more personal,” said Christopher Simpson, professor of communications at American University in Washington. “We saw photos, we were given names. But as the deaths kept coming it became more anonymous, more de-personalized.”

Recently, the New York newspaper Newsday published the photos and brief profiles of five American soldiers killed in Iraq, alongside a strongly-worded commentary condemning a lack of media interest in the subject.

“Obscure people dying in obscurity,” the commentary said. “The Pekinese of the Press do not feel dead soldiers are worth mentioning. Only the guy next to them knew what they were made of.”

To some extent the press, especially the visual media has been hampered by a military ban on the filming or photographing of soldiers’ remains being sent home.

Footage of flag-draped coffins carries enormous resonance in the United States, but for more than a decade photographers and film crews have been barred from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware — the main staging post for reception of the remains of GIs killed overseas.

In March, on the eve of the Iraq invasion, the Pentagon sent a directive to US military bases underlining the no-access policy.

“There will be no arrival ceremonies for, or media coverage of, deceased military personnel returning to or departing from Ramstein (in Germany) or Dover base, to include interim stops,” the directive said.

“Shielding these tragic arrivals from view is part of a troubling response to the public’s recent war worries,” USA Today said in an editorial on Thursday.

Long term support for continued US military involvement in Iraq “is dependent on honest portrayals,” the newspaper argued.

History, however, suggests that support and honest portrayals do not necessarily make for happy bedfellows.—AFP