- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A
U.S. contractor and her husband have been fired after her photograph of
20 flag-draped coffins of slain U.S. soldiers going home from Iraq was
published in violation of military rules.
-
- "I lost my job and they let my husband go as
well,"
Tami Silicio, who loaded U.S. military cargo at Kuwait International
Airport
for a U.S. company, told Reuters in an e-mail response to questions.
-
- The Pentagon tightly restricts publication of photographs
of coffins with the remains of U.S. soldiers and has forbidden journalists
from taking pictures at Dover Air Force Base where the caskets of slain
soldiers usually first stop on their return to the United States.
-
- The military says the policy is in place to protect the
privacy of families of those killed, but critics have said the rules are
aimed at sanitizing the war for the public.
-
- The Seattle Times printed Silicio's photograph last
weekend
and again on Thursday along with a story about her dismissal. The picture
shows soldiers tending to 20 coffins completely covered with American flags
on April 7 inside a military cargo plane at the Kuwait airport.
-
- Silicio, who was raised in the Seattle area, was not
paid by the newspaper for the picture that a friend in the United States,
Amy Katz, passed on to the newspaper. Katz said she had since found an
agent to sell the photograph.
-
- STRICT POLICY
-
- Silicio's former employer, Colorado-based Maytag
Aircraft,
told the paper she was dismissed for violating U.S. government and company
regulations. The company did not return phone calls for comment.
-
- The Pentagon has declined to comment on Silicio's case
but spokesman James Turner said the policy of media coverage of such issues
has been in effect since 1991.
-
- "The principal focus and purpose of the policy is
to protect the wishes and the privacy of the families during their time
of greatest loss and grief," he said.
-
- Turner said the department's no-coverage policy also
included "interim stops" and not just Dover Air Force
Base.
-
- Katz said Silicio, whose own son died from an illness,
took the picture to show the "respectful death ritual" for slain
soldiers and not to make money or become famous. Other contractors and
soldiers had taken similar pictures, she said.
-
- Katz said her friend believed she was in Kuwait to
"stand
in for the parents who can't be here for the living and the
fallen."
-
- "Tami Silicio was only pledging allegiance to our
flag and to our heroes laying beneath it," she said.
-
- Violence has escalated over the past month in Iraq and
the death toll among U.S. soldiers has risen quickly. Since the start of
the war in March last year, 511 U.S. soldiers have been killed in combat,
Pentagon figures show. More than 100 have been killed this month
alone.
-
- The Seattle Times stood by its decision to use the
photograph.
Managing Editor David Boardman said it was unfortunate Silicio was fired
but she was aware of the consequences when the picture was
published.
-
- "This person is not an anti-war activist,"
Boardman said. "Her motivation was to share with the American people
and families of service people both alive and dead how these bodies are
being handled and the honor and respect they are given."
-
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- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&
;e=5&u=
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