If You Can't See The Coffins, Nobody Died

This is rich - I’m no fan of Biden (D-MBNA - Bankrupt) but this exchange shows just how corrupt & hateful the Bush Assministration is. This exchange is from last Sunday's Face the Nation.

SCHIEFFER: You talk about not fully informing the American people. There's no question that the administration has at least discouraged people from reporting on casualties there. For example, the casualties all the people who have been killed in Iraq come back through the...

Sen. BIDEN: True.

SCHIEFFER: ...Air Force base in Delaware.

Sen. BIDEN: In Dover.

SCHIEFFER: Do you ever go out to meet those flights out there?

Sen. BIDEN: I've tried to and they will not allow me to. As a matter of fact...

Sen. BIDEN: The Defense Department. Look...

SCHIEFFER: Wait a minute. You're a United States senator.

Sen. BIDEN: I'm a United States senator. Well, let me be very...

SCHIEFFER: They're not letting you on a military base?

Sen. BIDEN: I'm allowed in the military base. I'm not allowed to go to the mortuary. I'm not allowed to be there when the flag-draped casket comes in. As a matter of fact, Bob, one family asked me whether I would meet their son who was tragically gunned down, actually car bomb in Iraq. This is several months ago. I said I would be honored to be with them. They wanted me to come with the minister. They wanted me through the whole process. The commander of the base told me that he couldn't allow that to happen and he's a friend--this is not like there's no hostility there; I'm on the base all the time--until he cleared it with the Pentagon. And I'm told the civilian leadership in the Pentagon. So in order for me to literally go in and accompany a mom and a dad and a son to pick up the body of a dead son, a young Marine killed in Iraq, I was not just able to do it as a senior United States senator, former chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee--not like I'm new to this. I had to get specific permission for that specific event. I wanted to go when more than one Marine came back dead and I just wanted to show my respect. I didn't want any press there. There was no press. We weren't talking about that.

SCHIEFFER: So you think it is the secretary of Defense himself who's blocking you?

Sen. BIDEN: Well, that's my understanding. I don't know that for a fact, but it's not the military. It's the civilian decision in the Defense Department that you're not allowed to be there just to show respects.