Iraq: The unseen war

The grim reality of Iraq rarely appears in the American press. This photo gallery reveals the war's horrible human toll.

Friday, August 26, 2011 2:14 


 Governments keep war hidden because it is hideous. To allow citizens to see its reality -- the shattered bodies, the wounded children, the incomprehensible mayhem -- is to risk eroding popular support for it. This is particularly true with wars that have less than overwhelming popular support to begin with. In the case of Vietnam, battlefield images played an important role in turning the tide of public opinion. And in Iraq, a war whose official justification has turned out to be false, and which a majority of the American people now believe to have been a mistake, the administration would prefer that these grim images never be seen.
But the media is also responsible for sanitizing the Iraq war, at times rendering it almost invisible. Most American publications have been reluctant to run graphic war images. Almost no photographs of the 1,868 U.S. troops who have been killed to date in Iraq have appeared in U.S. publications. In May 2005, the Los Angeles Times surveyed six major newspapers and the nation's two leading newsmagazines, and found that over a six-month period, no images of dead American troops appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Time or Newsweek. A single image of a covered body of a slain American ran in the Seattle Times. There were also comparatively few images of wounded Americans. The publications surveyed tended to run more images of dead or wounded Iraqis, but they have hardly been depicted in large numbers either.

Photo by MARCO DI LAURO/Getty
A U.S. Marine from Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, next to the dead body of a suspected insurgent during the ground offensive Nov. 9, 2004, in Fallujah, Iraq.
 

Photo by STEPHANIE SINCLAIR/Chicago Tribune
A mosque employee prepares the body of Lamiamh Ali, 6. Four siblings were playing outside their home in Baghdad when a U.S. cluster bomb exploded. Two of the children died that day and their brother died later as a result of his injuries. Photo taken April 26, 2003

Photo by WATHIQ KHUZAIE/Getty
An injured Iraqi man asks for help at the scene of a car bomb, on June 14, 2004, in Baghdad. A car bomb exploded at rush hour as three civilian sport utility vehicles -- the kind favored by Western contractors -- passed by one of Baghdad's most heavily trafficked squares. Dozens were wounded in the blast.

Photo by MITCHELL PROTHERO/ WpN
Ali Abbas, 6, cries in pain from wounds sustained in fighting between U.S. troops and fighters loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Sept. 5, 2004. "I want the American people to see the face of the terrorists they fight," said his father, Abbas.

Photo by EPA/STEFAN ZAKLIN/Landov
A U.S. soldier lies dead on the kitchen floor of a house used as a base by insurgent fighters in Fallujah, on Saturday, Nov. 13, 2004. The soldier was shot and killed by insurgent fighters when he entered the room. Two other U.S. military personnel were wounded by the insurgents, who escaped.

Photo by EPA/MOHAMMED MESSARA/Landov
Iraqis carry the dead body of a baby killed during U.S. airstrikes against the western city of Fallujah on Thursday, Sept. 9, 2004. At least five Iraqis were killed during the overnight bombardment.

Photo by KARIM SAHIB/Getty
Iraqi soldiers and policemen gather near the remains of an alleged suicide bomber, who blew himself up inside a restaurant in Baghdad on June 19, 2005. Ten Iraqis, including five policemen, died in the attack, an interior ministry source said.

Photo by AP Photo/JOHN MOORE
Army Chaplain Capt. Daoud Agbere, right, a Muslim cleric, prays for an American soldier after he was pronounced dead upon arrival at a military hospital in Baghdad, on Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2004, despite the efforts of Army Nurse supervisor Patrick McAndrew, left, to revive him. The soldier was fatally wounded in a Baghdad firefight with insurgents.

Photo by GHAITH ABDUL-AHAD/Getty
A critically wounded Iraqi civilian lies next to a dead civilian on Sept. 12, 2004, in Haifa Street, in Baghdad. After a U.S. Bradley fighting vehicle was attacked and disabled by a car bomb, a crowd of Iraqi civilians gathered around, including three Arab journalists. A U.S. helicopter then fired a missile into the crowd, killing 13 civilians -- including a TV journalist who had just signed off on his report -- and wounding as many as 100. Controversy persists over why the helicopter fired: The U.S. military first claimed it was a routine operation to destroy the vehicle, then that the helicopter had come under small-arms fire. Eyewitnesses disputed that claim.

Photo by GHAITH ABDUL-AHAD/Getty
In a photograph taken minutes later, the wounded Iraqi civilian has collapsed. The Bradley fighting vehicle burns in the background.

Photo by BENJAMIN LOWY/Corbis
The unattended bodies of unclaimed Iraqi dead, killed as violence and insecurity lay siege to Baghdad, lie on the floor of a Baghdad hospital morgue, on July 21, 2003.

FULL SOURCE OF PORTION OF TEXT USED AND PHOTO'S HERE:
 www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/08/23/iraq_gallery/print.html