"You Can't Handle the Truth"

That is what Jack Nicholson's uptight marine colonel told Tom Cruise's young Navy JAG officer in the movie, "A Few Good Men". Art imitates life. The ACLU released this week thousands of documents that the Pentagon suppressed concerning the truth about civilian casualties caused by US forces in Iraq. The documents were given up as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request by the civil rights advocacy group filed in June 2006. The documents are from the files of eight Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) investigations of civilian deaths, including a cousin of the Iraqi ambassador to the United States. Through the release of information, the ACLU has made public Defense Department policies designed to control information about the human costs of war. These practices include: banning photographers on U.S. military bases from covering the arrival of caskets containing the remains of U.S. soldiers killed overseas; paying Iraqi journalists to write positive accounts of the U.S. war effort; inviting U.S. journalists to "embed" with military units but requiring them to submit their stories for pre-publication review; erasing journalists' footage of civilian deaths in Afghanistan; and refusing to disclose statistics on civilian casualties. A retired Army colonel and ACLU board member said that the document release shows that many war crimes have not yet seen the light of day, "There are many discoveries here that should bring pause to any American who cares about this country and hopes to restore the United States' respected role in the world. It is time to bring the facts about this war into the sunlight and end practices that go against our laws and national values." I could not have said it better.