The U.S. military is confirming that soldiers had deleted media photographs and video after an incident which killed up to 10 civilians on Sunday.
Rahmat Gul, a photographer working for the Associated Press, said U.S. soldiers took his camera from him in order to delete pictures he made showing the wreckage of a destroyed four-wheel drive vehicle. The soldiers then returned the camera. A TV crew covering the same incident also had tape deleted.
Later, a U.S. military spokesperson said "The journalists had gone beyond a security perimeter and had been asked to remove their images to "protect the integrity of the investigation."
Even if the soldiers deleted the pictures, a simple $30 digital picture software recovery program could most likely restore the files. So, why did the soldiers want to stop the press from making pictures of the scene?
Could the Marines have been attempting to cover up the incident?
The Marines say no. In fact, the official response is that the soldiers were trying to keep the images from the world because they feared the scene had been tampered with prior to the arrival of the media. Major William Mitchell later told AFP, "We have reminded our forces in the area that only in extreme circumstances is this practice condoned."
This is an interesting remark coming from a person of power, because in a war zone all circumstances are EXTREME. In a split second, then, how are soldiers, who are caught in the heat of battle or the aftermath of something else terrible, expected to make decisions about what or what not to allow the media to cover?
Given the recent history of this conflict, along with all the bad press the military is getting, Mitchell's logic is fuzzy and may be impossible to carry out in the future. In other words, what the major and others are telling us here is that we'll try really hard not to censor the press, but we can't guarantee it. The big picture reality is that no matter what the truth may be in sorting this mess out, the wrong message has already been sent to the world.
For the U.S. military, another firestorm of criticism may be waiting to erupt as early reports of the incident raise more questions than answers about how the troops dealt with the press on the scene.
It could be that any public relations efforts by the Marines may be already too late to restore public perception and faith in the war effort given the legacy of charges of abuse aimed at U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.