The Pentagon is objecting to a website that has published 350 U.S. air force photos showing flag-draped coffins, most of which were of American soldiers killed in Iraq.

The air force released the images, showing the coffins at a mortuary at the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, to an activist who had filed a request for them under the Freedom of Information Act.

Col. Jon Anderson, a spokesperson for the base, said the photos included images of the remains of astronauts from the shuttle Columbia as well as casualties from Afghanistan.

Seattle Times front page April 18, 2004
Seattle Times front page April 18, 2004

Russ Kick posted them on his website, and thousands of computer users have viewed them.

"Quite frankly, we don't want the remains of our service members who have made the ultimate sacrifice to be the subject of any kind of attention that is unwarranted or undignified," John Molino, a deputy undersecretary of defence, told reporters on Thursday.

A Pentagon policy drafted during the Gulf War in 1991 forbids media agencies from publishing images of soldiers' coffins.

Jaime Vasquez
Jaime Vasquez

In the current military action against Iraq, protesters have called on the government to repeal the policy so as to not distort reporting about the war's impact by hiding any sight of the human cost.

"That's part of war. This is part of history," said Vietnam War veteran Jaime Vasquez, who belongs to the group Veterans for Peace.

"Americans receive a sanitized version of war, and that's unfortunate."

Earlier in the week, an American cargo worker was fired for taking a photo of 20 flag-draped coffins awaiting transport home on a military aircraft in Kuwait.

Tami Silicio, 50, provided the story to the Seattle Times to illustrate a story about how respectfully the soldiers' bodies are treated on their last voyage back to their families.