This is the second of two stories involving photos of flag-draped coffins. In this one, Tami Silicio took some photos in Kuwait and sent at least one home to Seattle. Someone there asked the Seattle Times to publish the photo(s), which it did along with a story. mjh
U.S. contractor fired for military coffin photo By Sue Pleming, Reuters
A U.S. contractor and her husband have been fired after her photograph of 20 flag-draped coffins of American troops 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. troops and has forbidden journalists from taking pictures at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the first stop for the bodies of troops being sent home. …
Since the start of the war in March 2003, more than 700 U.S. troops have died in Iraq, with more than 100 killed this month, the Pentagon said.
The Seattle Times: Local News: What readers are saying
We asked readers to share their thoughts on this photograph that was published in The Seattle Times and the issues surrounding its publication.
Here’s a representative sample of the more than 175 comments submitted. [read them]
A rightwing news blog cites the intrepid research of a talk-radio journalist. mjh
GI Casket Photog Sued Cheney in 2000 NewsMax.com
[I]t turns out that four years ago the duo, Tami Silicio and Amy Katz, sued Halliburton, then run by Vice President Dick Cheney, naming Cheney in the suit. …
[KTTH Seattle radio host Mike] Siegel said on Friday that the Katz-Silicio lawsuit against Cheney raises questions about the politics behind the casket photo story, saying the two women likely had an axe to grind against the Bush administration.
He also chastised the press for not noting the Katz-Silicio lawsuit, saying, ”What does that say about the Seattle Times, which printed the photo without doing any investigation.”