Who shot Gaddafi? Nato agent or US spy

Who shot Gaddafi? New video shows blood pouring from dictator immediately before death but mystery surrounds coup de grace

• Gaddafi's last words were 'Do you know right from wrong?'
  
• Executed in front of a baying mob and body paraded through the streets...
• ....but acting Libyan PM claims Gaddafi was killed in crossfire
• Gaddafi may have launched last-ditch fightback in back of ambulance
• Bodyguard 'killed leader' to spare him indignity of capture
• Eccentric dictator was wearing gold pants when he was killed
• France announces end of Nato airstrikes as 'mission is complete'
• Eldest son Saif 'captured in Zlitan' after arms are injured in explosions
• Body covered in plastic and stashed in freezer to keep out baying crowds
• Uncertainty over burial as wife calls for UN inquiry into husband's death

 The final bloody moments of Muammar Gaddafi's life were still shrouded in confusion today as conflicting reports emerged about who fired the shot that actually killed him.
Libya's deposed leader was pulled out alive from a drain under a motorway in Sirte, the city of his birthplace, where he had been hiding with a small group of bodyguards.
A clutch of videos have emerged on the internet in which he is seen begging his captors for mercy. His condition varies dramatically, with later footage showing him rambling and drenched in blood.
Wounded and terrified, Gaddafi appeared deluded to the end, asking his captors: 'What did I do to you?' His last words were 'Do you know right from wrong?' 
Scroll down for video of Gaddafi's last minutes...

Was this the moment the dictator died? A handgun points at the head of Gaddafi who is facing the ground with his hands behind his back

Fear on his face after being captured in his home town of Sirte, this is Gaddafi in the moments leading up to his death

Final moments: A dazed Gaddafi gesticulates as rebels parade him through Sirte shortly before he was shot

Grimacing in pain: A still from a video taken from the mobile phone of a rebel fighter shows Gaddafi, his face covered in blood, being dragged around by freedom fighters

Losing blood: Gaddafi lifts a hand to his face to see the blood pouring from his wounds. The mobile phone footage shows the dictator slumped against a jeep but still alive

Moments after the last grainy video was shot, it is believed he was killed. Initial reports suggested he had been executed by revolutionary forces in front of a baying mob.
But there have been claims by rebels who witnessed the killing that Gaddafi was actually shot by one of his own bodyguards to spare him further humiliation. 

It has also been suggested he was shot during a fight inside an ambulance conveying him to hospital or that he was actually caught in crossfire.

Grisly end: New pictures released today show Gaddafi's scarred corpse on the floor of a freezer where it is being kept before burial

A day Libyans fought for: Gaddafi's eyes are closed and mouth firmly shut as preparations are made for his burial

One rebel claimed that he had been killed as he put up a desperate last fight for freedom. He carried his golden revolver on him at all times, and may have pulled it from his clothes.
'He might have been resisting. He might have struggled, tried to escape,' a Libyan revolutionary said.
Pictures of Gaddafi's body show a bullet hole in the temple, which supports claims he was shot at close range.
'They captured him alive and while he was being taken away, they beat him and then they killed him,' a freedom fighter said.
Gaddafi's battered body was paraded through the streets of Sirte to the sound of celebratory gunfire and jubilant shouts.
Another video captured the corpse of the 69-year-old being dragged through the streets of Sirte, to be paraded later before celebrating crowds in the nearby port town of Misrata.

Pleading: Muammar Gaddafi begged with his captors for his life after he was found cowering in a storm drain

Paraded: Gaddafi struggled with his captors in video footage taken by rebel fighters after he was found

Chaotic: Gaddafi was pushed around by rebel fighters, one of whom filmed the incident on a mobile phone

Fear: Becoming increasingly desperate, Gaddafi asked a rebel fighter 'What did I ever do to you'

Terrified: Moments after he begged for his life, Gaddafi was shot dead by rebel fighters

The circumstances leading up to Gaddafi's death are more clear.
RAF Tornados helped launch the final airstrike by flying surveillance missions which cleared the way for French fighter jets to bomb a Gaddafi convoy.
The astonishing end for the tyrant came after he and loyalist fighters tried to flee Sirte as it was overrun by forces of the National Transitional Council.
Gaddafi was in a convoy of up to 100 vehicles which tried to break out of Sirte – the last centre of resistance after eight months of civil war – early yesterday.
The escape was spotted by Nato which launched two devastating strikes. At least 50 loyalist fighters were killed.
Injured in both legs, Gaddafi made his way with bodyguards through trees. The group hid in two concrete sewers but were spotted by rebels.
A Libyan named Salem Bakeer said that he and his comrades gave chase to Gaddafi and his small retinue of bodyguards after they fled their convoy following the airstrike.
'At first we fired at them with anti-aircraft guns, but it was no use,' said Bakeer.
'Then we went in on foot. One of Gaddafi's men came out waving his rifle in the air and shouting surrender, but as soon as he saw my face he started shooting at me.

Struggle: Video footage shows Gaddafi being hauled off a rebel fighter truck minutes after his capture

Manhandled: The former Libyan leader is propped up against the side of a truck during the melee

Arguing: Gaddafi pictured in chaotic video footage minutes before he was killed

Watch the footage of Gaddafi's last minutes in this video:

'Then I think Gaddafi must have told them to stop. ''My master is here, my master is here'', he said, ''Muammar Gaddafi is here and he is wounded.''
'We went in and brought Gaddafi out. He was saying ''What's wrong? What's wrong? What's going on?''. Then we took him and put him in the car.'
Freelance photojournalist Holly Pickett was embedded with an ambulance. She said that she saw another ambulance  carrying Gaddafi.
So close was she to the action, that she was able to pick out the bloodied body of Gaddafi. She says that he was wearing gold pants.
She tweeted: 'From the side door, I could see a bare chest with bullet wound and a bloody hand. He was wearing gold-coloured pants.
'At every checkpoint between Sirte and Misrata, crowds had gathered and wanted to know if we were the ambulance with Gaddafi's body in it.
'Upon hearing the truth, that Gaddafi was truly dead, revolutionaries at the checkpoints were beside themselves, shouting with joy.'

Celebration: Mohammed al-Bibi, seen here in a Yankees hat, points to a comrade holding Gaddafi's golden gun. Al-Bibi is the one who found the despot in his final hiding place and duly claimed the war souvenir

Adel Samir said that Gaddafi was shot in the stomach with a a 9mm pistol. But Imad Moustaf told Global Post that Gaddafi was shot in the head and the heart.
Doctor Ibrahim Tika added: 'Gaddafi was arrested while he was alive but he was killed later. There was a bullet and that was the primary reason for his death, it penetrated his gut. Then there was another bullet in the head that went in and out of his head.'
The claims that Gaddafi was executed in the back of an ambulance may be celebrated in Libya. But some within the new government, which is trying to establish itself on the western stage, would have preferred for Gaddafi to have been captured alive and put on trial.
It could be for this reason that Libya's interim prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, said that Gaddafi was killed from a bullet to the head during crossfire between government fighters and his loyalists.
Jibril told a news conference in the capital, Tripoli, today: 'I am going to read to you a report by the forensic doctor who examined Gaddafi.
'It said: ''Gaddafi was taken out of a sewage pipe … he didn't show any resistance. When we started moving him he was hit by a bullet in his right arm and when they put him in a truck he did not have any other injuries. When the car was moving it was caught in crossfire between the revolutionaries and Gaddafi forces in which he was hit by a bullet in the head''.'

Dead: The body of Gaddafi is covered with a blue plastic sheet at a house in Misrata. He is due to be buried at a secret funeral within the next 24 hours

Brutal end for tyrant who exported terror: Gaddafi's body is displayed, clearly showing a bullet hole in his head

The exact circumstances around this theory are unclear. It is unlikely that bullets would have penetrated the ambulance and hit Gaddafi, who was pictured slumped against a rebel's leg, in the head.
It is also unlikely he was shot in the head before he entered the ambulance as bullets to the head almost always knock somebody off their feet killing them instantly.
This points again to the theory that Gaddafi and a bodyguard launched a fightback inside the ambulance.
CBS News correspondent David Martin claims that Gaddafi's own bodyguard shot him, in order to spare him the indignity of being captured.

Confirmation of the death sparked wild scenes of celebration across Libya with tens of thousands taking to the streets.
Celebratory gunfire rang out across the capital, Tripoli. Cars honked their horns and people embraced each other.
In Sirte, ecstatic rebels celebrated the city’s fall after weeks of bloody siege by firing endless rounds into the sky.
Gaddafi’s death closes a chapter in the Nato-led military campaign to help rebel forces remove him from power. Ever since the fall of Tripoli, the hunt for Gaddafi had prevented rebels from claiming outright victory. 
France’s defence minister announced today that the multi-million-pound bombing campaign of Libya by airforces including the RAF is now over.
‘The military operation is complete,’ said Alain Juppe, in Paris. ‘All Libyan territory is under the control of the National Transitional Council, and subject to some transitional technicalities, the Nato operation has come to an end. 
‘The objective of helping the National Transitional Council to liberate their territory is now achieved,’ Mr Juppe added.
‘They will enter a phase of reconstruction, or of  construction. It is about establishing the rule of law, which never existed. ‘
A meeting later today will decide the technicalities of winding up the operation which has cost British taxpayers an estimated £300 million.
Admiral Jim Stavridis made said today before a meeting of the alliance's North Atlantic Council.that it was 'a good day for Nato, a great day for the people of Libya'.
US president Barack Obama last night announced that the mission would 'soon come to an end', although Foreign Secretary William Hague struck a more cautious note.

Procession: Libyans have been flocking to the morgue, where Gaddafi's body was taken, and have been taking photographs of him

Dead: Gaddafi's son Mutassim was also killed in a firefight in Sirte

Last moments of his life: Gaddafi's son Mutassim lies on a sofa in pain and soaked with blood after his capture but before his death in Sirte

'We will want to be sure that there are no remaining pockets of pro-Gaddafi fighters who can again become a threat to the civilian population,' he said.
Last night it emerged that RAF Tornados helped launch the final airstrike by flying surveillance missions which cleared the way for French fighter jets to bomb a Gaddafi convoy.
There were also claims that RAF jets carried out another raid which led to the wounding of Gaddafi’s favourite son, Saif al-Islam.
The conflict has already cost British taxpayers more than £1billion and today Nato chiefs will decide whether to end the aerial campaign.

Mutassim Gaddafi: He was also killed by Libyan rebels

David Cameron, who had driven much of Nato’s intervention, hailed it as a moment to remember Gaddafi’s many victims, including those who died when Pan-Am flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie in 1988, policewoman Yvonne Fletcher, and those killed by the IRA using Libyan Semtex.
In a statement notably free of any hint of triumphalism, the Prime Minister said he was ‘proud’ of the role Britain played in helping the Libyan people liberate their country.
Outside 10 Downing Street, Mr Cameron said: ‘People in Libya today have an even greater chance of building themselves a strong and democratic future.
‘I’m proud of the role that Britain has played in helping them to bring that about and I pay tribute to the bravery of the Libyans who have helped to liberate their country.’
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who with Mr Cameron had kept up pressure for Nato’s continued role, said Gaddafi’s death was a ‘major step on the country’s path to democracy.’
U.S. President Barack Obama said: ‘This marks the end of a long and painful chapter for the people of Libya.’
Nato leaders will be watching anxiously over the next few days, however, in case Gaddafi loyalists plunder stockpiled weapons to wreak bloody revenge on the rebels.
Five bodyguards were killed but one tried to save Gaddafi, telling rebels: ‘My master is here, my master is here. Muammar Gaddafi is here and he is wounded.’

Bundled: An ambulance carries Gaddafi's body from Sirte to Misrata

Transporting: An ambulance, containing happy rebel fighters, carries Gaddafi's body after he was executed

But there was to be no mercy for the man dubbed ‘The King of Kings of Africa’.

He is the first leader to be killed in the ‘Arab Spring’ wave of popular uprisings that have swept the Middle East, demanding the end of autocratic rulers and the establishment of greater democracy.
His death decisively ends a regime that had turned Libya into an international pariah.
The oil-rich nation now enters a new era, but its turmoil may not  be over.
The former rebels who now rule are disorganised, face rebuilding a country stripped of institutions, and have already shown signs of infighting with divisions between geographical areas and Islamist and more secular ideologies. 

Brutal: There had been fierce fighting around the drain before Gaddafi was finally killed. The body of a fighter can be seen in the dust at the centre of the screen

Already a monument: As celebrations continued, more and more graffiti appeared at the entrance to the drain where the leader was eventually found

Battleground: Bodies of suspected Gaddafi loyalists lie outside the storm drains their leader was captured

The death of Gaddafi and his son, Mutassim, who commanded loyalists in Sirte, as well as the capture of the British-educated Saif al-Islam, who was seen as the heir apparent, effectively removed any rallying point for an insurgency.
Both Gaddafi and Saif had faced international war crimes warrants and there was concern last night that unlike Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who was similarly pulled from a hole where he was hiding – he eventually was hanged in Baghdad – the Libyan leader was effectively executed by the troops of a fledgling democracy.

Devastated: NATO airstrikes and revolutionary ground forces concentrated on a compound in Sirte, where they believed Gaddafi was hiding

Bombed out: Vehicles belonging to Gaddafi's supporters sit destroyed near Sirte after NATO airstrikes

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the Lockerbie bombing, said the killing of Gaddafi meant ‘an opportunity has been lost’ to find out the truth of what happened.
‘I would have loved to have seen Gaddafi appear in front of the International Criminal Court both to answer charges against his gross treatment of his own people and of citizens murdered abroad by his thugs,’ he said.
‘But I would also have loved to have heard about what Gaddafi knew about the Lockerbie atrocity.’
Amnesty International called for an independent inquiry into the circumstances of the death.

Double celebration: Anti-Gaddafi fighters celebrate the fall of Sirte, but the news soon came that the leader himself had been captured

End of conflict: The fall of Sirte ends the last significant resistance by forces loyal to the deposed leader, and ends a two-month siege

All that's left: A lone revolutionary soldier fires into the air in celebration. Behind him lies the ruins of a town all but destroyed by fighting

Jet strike, then he slinks to a sewer

To the jubilant fighters on Sirte’s battered streets last night, the man known as 'Mad Dog' during four decades of brutal rule had met a fitting end trapped like a rat in a sewer pipe begging for his life.
The most momentous day in the entire Arab Spring revolution had begun with them not even aware that the tyrant was hiding in his home city.
It ended in scenes of wild celebration as rebels fired guns into the air while Gaddafi’s force of bodyguards lay dead on the ground.
The countdown to the dictator’s downfall began at the start of the week when revolutionary fighters gained control of the stronghold of Bani Walid, where Gaddafi had first fled after the fall of Tripoli.
This opened the road to Sirte, his beloved home town.
By Tuesday they had squeezed his forces into a residential area of about 700 square yards in Sirte known as Neighbourhood Two, but were still coming under heavy fire from surrounding buildings.
Foreign snipers said to have been earning up to £500 a day, hiding in the blitzed shells of buildings, had picked off National Transitional Council troops on a daily basis.

Celebrations: Thousands came out on the streets of Tripoli as news of the dictator's demise spread

Joy: Many carried flags while some showed off pictures of the dead dictator who had been in power for 40 years

THE LAST STAND

The final assault on Neighbourhood Two began yesterday at 8am local time, 6am GMT with two rebel tanks, artillery and a dozen anti-aircraft guns bombarding the small areas of concrete office blocks and residential housing which had been still holding out against overwhelming odds.
Hundreds of National Transitional Council fighters roared in on flatback trucks under cover of the barrage.
The resistance of mainly North African mercenary snipers and Gaddafi loyalist troops was broken as position by position was over run, some surrendering, some choosing to fight to the death.
The presence of Gaddafi, who many believed to have been hiding in the southern desert near the border with Niger, explains the dogged, almost fanatical, resistance of the defenders of Sirte.
For weeks they had resisted knowing they were entirely cut off, even launching a counter attack late last week which killed and wounded more than a dozen NTC fighters.

Golden trophy: Young Libyans hold a gold-plated handgun belonging to Gaddafi, left, while a still from mobile phone footage purportedly shows his bloodied body being carried in the street in Sirte

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2051361/GADDAFI-DEAD-VIDEO-Dictator-begs-life-summary-execution.html#ixzz1bRNxR9UE

Gambar-Gambar Terakhir Gaddafi Sebelum Dan Selepas Ditembak Mati (15 Gambar)

Friday, 21 October 2011

Serius Shit - Gambar-Gambar Terakhir Gaddafi Sebelum Dan Selepas Ditembak Mati (15 Gambar)

Gone!

Kolonel Muaamar Gaddafi mati semalam selepas ditembak pejuang penentang Libya. Beliau yang dijumpai meyorok didalam kolong ditepi jalan sebagai percubaan melarikan diri dari ditangkap. Konvoi beliau sebelum itu dibom oleh jet pejuang Perancis atas bidang kuasa NATO. Semasa ditangkap Gaddafi berkali-kali memohon agar beliau tidak dibunuh. Ini adalah polar opposite dari apa yang dilaungkan beliau beberapa bulan yang lalu dimana beliau bersumpah akan menentang sehingga ketitisan darah terakhir. Gaddafi diheret keluar dari kolong selepas pengawal peribadinya semua dibunuh. Selepas dibelasah pejuang yang menangkapnya beliau ditembak dikepala. Mayat beliau kemudian diheret sebelum ditunjukkan kepada orang ramai sebagai bukti kematian beoliau.

Turut terbunuh dalam serangan di SIRTE semalam ialah anak beliau Mutassim Gaddafi. Sirte ialah banda kelahiran Gaddafi, macam Saddam yang lari ke Tikrit selepas kekalahan teruk - Gaddafi melarikan diri ke Sirte untuk one final stand. Begitulah kisah diktator moden. Cakap mahu berlawan sehingga titisan darah terakhir tapi akhirnya begging for the life.

73,846 US Soldiers Dead from Both Gulf Wars,

73,846 US Soldiers Dead from Both Gulf Wars, How They Manipulated the Numbers to Fool You

More Gulf War Veterans have died than Vietnam Veterans. This probably is news to you. But the truth has been hidden by a technicality. So here is the truth.

The casualties in the Vietnam War were pretty simple to understand. If a soldier was dead from his combat tour, he was a war casualty. There are 58,195 names recorded on the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC.

But something odd has happened with the Iraq War. The government, under the Bush administration, did something dishonest that resulted in a lie that’s persisted since the war began — and continues to this very day. They decided to report the war deaths in Iraq only if the soldier died with his boots on the ground in a combat situation.'

Point And Shoot

More WTF:

(click for full size)

If you’ve been following this site, you know I’ve been taking in images from Ashley Gilbertson’s book, Whisky Tango Foxtrot, based on the extended time he spent as a war photographer in Iraq.
In this shot, we see an American soldier snapping a photo of a dead Mahdi Army fighter. The Iraqi was killed in May 2004 in the course of an overnight grenade-lobbing battle in a Karbala amusement park between insurgents and  troops of the First Armored Division.  According to Ashley’s caption, Army policy is to leave Iraqi dead for other Iraqis to recover and bury.  As a result, the body was still on the street the next morning.
Based on Ashley’s text, the soldier is taking the photo because the scene is “an object of curiosity for GI’s.”
The allusion reminds me of a bumper sticker that was popular during the Vietnam War.  It read:  “Join the Army: Travel to exotic distant lands; meet exciting, unusual people and kill them.”  Of course, the slogan has everything to do with cynicism and next-to-nothing to do with insight.  Still, looking at an image like this, it makes me think hard about the intersection of war (especially a U.S.-instigated cultural and religious war) and personal digital photography and video. (You do remember this, right?).
Call it a mixing of metaphors, but at a perverse level, where does a shot like this depart from the sphere of work-a-day war fighting and become, a lá the bumper sticker, a sadistic exemplification of tourism?
At the same time, I’m interested in the politics of the shot, and the curiosity of one shooter — a professional — shooting an amateur.
As Gilbertson conveys throughout the book, the largest portion of the shots he ended up with were the result of his — and the visual media’s — limited access to the war.  That being the case, one thing this picture captures is the irony that the troops — so many of them with a point-and-shoot on their person — had the media in their pockets, while the war photographers, and by extension, the rest of us, had next-to-nothing.
BAG’s WTF series here.  Purchase WTF here.  WTF Web Site right here.

This is a war the Bush administration does not want Americans to see

From the beginning, the U.S. government has attempted to censor information about the Iraq war, prohibiting photographs of the coffins of U.S. troops returning home and refusing as a matter of policy to keep track of the number of Iraqis who have been killed. President Bush has yet to attend a single funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq.
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. To be sure, this see-no-evil approach is neither surprising nor new. With the qualified exception of the Vietnam War, when images of body bags appeared frequently on the nightly news, American governments have always tightly controlled images of war. There is good reason for this. In war, a picture really is worth a thousand words. No story about a battle, no matter how eloquent, possesses the raw power of a photograph. And when it comes to war's ultimate consequences -- death and suffering -- there is simply no comparison: a photo of a dead man or woman has the capacity to unsettle those who see it, sometimes forever. The bloated corpses photographed by Mathew Brady after Antietam remain in the mind, their puffy, shocked faces haunting us like an obscene truth almost 150 years after the soldiers were cut down. "War is hell," said Gen. Sherman, and everyone dutifully agrees. Yet the hell in Iraq is almost never shown. The few exceptions -- the charred bodies of American contractors hanging from a bridge in Fallujah, the blood-spattered little girl wailing after her parents were killed next to her -- only prove the rule.
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 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.
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. 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 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. There are a number of reasons why the media has shied away from running graphic images from Iraq. Some are simple logistics: There are very few photographers in Iraq. Freelance reporter and photographer Mitchell Prothero, a Salon contributor, estimates there are "maybe a dozen or two Western photographers" in Iraq, in addition to Iraqi and Arab stringers, who do most of the work for newswires. Ten or 20 photographers trying to cover a country the size of Sweden, under extremely difficult and dangerous conditions, are unlikely to be on the scene when violence erupts. Moreover, most photographers are embedded with U.S. troops, a situation that imposes its own limits. Military regulations prevent photographers from publishing photographs of dead or wounded soldiers until their families have been notified, which can diminish the news value of the photographs. And although embed rules allow photographers to take pictures of dead or wounded troops, the reality on the ground can be different. Soldiers do not want photographers -- especially ones they aren't comfortable with -- taking pictures of their dead or wounded buddies. This is understandable, but it can result in de facto censorship.
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. One photographer, who requested anonymity because he didn't want to jeopardize his ongoing relationship with the U.S. military, told Salon, "I've had unit commanders tell me flat out that if anybody gets wounded on patrol, you can't take any pictures of them. Nearly every time I've landed at [a medevac] scene, guys have yelled at me, 'Get the fuck away from me. Don't take my friend's picture. Get back on the helicopter.' Part of me understands that. I am a stranger to them. And they are very emotional. Their friend has been badly hurt or wounded, and they've probably all just been shot at 15 minutes before. I totally understand that, although it is a violation of embed rules." But it isn't just the troops. Editors in the States are reluctant to run graphic photographs. There are various reasons for this. Perhaps the most important is taste: Many publications think graphic images are just too disturbing. Business considerations doubtless also play a role, although few editors would admit that; graphic images upset some readers and can scare off advertisers. (Salon pulled all advertising, except house ads, off the pages of this gallery.) And there are political considerations: Supporters of the war often accuse the media of playing up bad news at the expense of more positive developments. To run images of corpses is to risk being criticized of antiwar bias. When "Nightline" ran photographs of the faces of all the U.S. troops who had been killed in Iraq, conservative groups were enraged and accused the network of harming morale. Not every publisher is anxious to walk into this kind of trouble.
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. The reluctance of American publications to run shocking images contrasts with the European press. "In my experience and in conversations with other people who've been doing this a lot longer than me, American publications shy away from extremely graphic material, compared to European ones," says Prothero. "I don't know whether the American audience reacts more strongly against seeing that over the breakfast table. I do know, anecdotally, that many very talented photographers, on staff, have taken pictures that have not run in magazines or newspapers. Maybe it's not a conscious decision but American publications very much shy away from showing casualties of U.S. troops on the ground. I think they're afraid the American public will freak out on them for showing dead American boys."
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. Photographer Stephanie Sinclair's unforgettable photograph of a 6-year-old Iraqi girl killed by an American cluster bomb, which appears in the gallery, originally ran in the Chicago Tribune. Robin Daughtridge, the Tribune's deputy director of photography, told Salon that after the photographs first came in, "the news editor was worried about running them without an accompanying story." Others in the newsroom thought the photographs "were too graphic, and too much, because we generally don't run tight pictures of dead bodies. We had run pictures of dead Iraqi soldiers and a dead bus driver before, so there was a precedent for running them, but we don't take it lightly." They ended up calling the paper's editor in chief, Ann Marie Lipinski, who assigned a reporter to do a piece on cluster bombs and their legacy.
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. Ultimately, Daughtridge said, politics didn't enter into the decision: "It was more about the fact that if we're going to show this death up close and personal, we better have a story behind it. All of us in the newsroom are trying to tell the story and letting the readers make up their own minds." She added, "I felt proud of what we did that day. All of this stuff that you hear about happening to families in Iraq doesn't really hit home until you see that picture of the little girl." For her part, Sinclair praised the Tribune for running the photo and the story. But, she said, "some of the publications I've worked for didn't run a lot of the Iraqi civilian stuff, the graphic pictures, the emotional pictures. I found that the Iraqi civilian story was really hard to get published in U.S. publications. And I worked for many. I don't know why. I think they're looking at their readership and they think their readers want to know about American troops, since they can relate to them more. They think that's what the audience wants." Sinclair also noted that American readers and viewers get only a sanitized view of the horrific consequences of suicide bombings. "A lot of the bombing stuff that you see is really toned down. To be honest, sometimes it should be. God, it's relentless. It's hard to look at. People have no idea what's happening in Iraq. You wonder, even as a photographer, if you're being gratuitous by photographing some of this. At the same time, as horrific as it is to see, people should know how horrific it is to live it every day. We should feel some sort of responsibility to make sure we have the best possible grasp of what's happening there." It is because we believe that the American people are not getting a look at the reality of the Iraq war, for Americans and Iraqis alike, that we decided to run this photo gallery. It is no secret that Salon has published many more pieces questioning and challenging the Iraq war than supporting it. But that is not why we think it is important that these images be seen. We would have run them even if we supported the war. The reason is simple: The truth should be told. People should know the truth about war. Before a nation decides to go to war, it should know what its consequences are. There is no way for any journalist, whether reporter or photographer, to capture the multifaceted reality of Iraq. But all of the journalists I have spoken to who have worked in Iraq say that the blandly optimistic pronouncements made by the Bush administration about the situation in Iraq are completely false. A picture of a dead child only represents a fragment of the truth about Iraq -- but it is one that we do not have the right to ignore. We believe we have an ethical responsibility to those who have been killed or wounded, whether Iraqis, Americans or those of other nationalities, not to simply pretend that their fate never happened. To face the bitter truth of war is painful. But it is better than hiding one's eyes. Additional reporting by Kevin Berger, Page Rockwell and Aaron Kinney.