Debate continues on whether the federal government was correct to release hundreds of photographs last week of flag-draped coffins containing the bodies U.S. troops killed in Iraq. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley sides with critics who say the pictures should -not- have been released, despite a protest from a First Amendment activist who demanded them and posted them on an Internet site. Grassley says “The privacy of the families ought to be prominent in any governmental decision. The family ought to be the governing agency.” Some veterans’ families objected to the 361 pictures being released — and newspapers nationwide used them. Other critics say the Bush administration is trying to blunt the impact of the war in Iraq by banning the pictures. Grassley, a Republican, says the precedent dates back more than a decade and is not the doing of the current administration.The decision was made during the Persian Gulf War and carried over into this war not to make a public display of tragedies and Grassley says “Somebody violated the rules. That’s a big deal.”
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