Soldiers are dying in Iraq nearly every day. We hear the news reports of casualties, and when a death strikes close to home — like the Iowans killed in the past two weeks — we learn about their lives.

But there are some important images the American public is not allowed to see — images that could change the way Americans feel about the struggling American occupation of Iraq.

For more than a decade, the Pentagon has enforced a ban against media coverage of the flag-draped coffins of American soldiers returning to the Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Del.

In 1991, before the Persian Gulf War, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell — then serving as U.S. defense secretary and joint chiefs chairman, respectively — issued the order banning media from recording images at the base, which has served as the military’s largest mortuary since 1955. The ban was expanded in November 2000 to include all U.S. military bases.

During the Vietnam War, media coverage of the return of soldiers’ remains was common. Through these images, the American public realized the magnitude of the prolonged and bloody situation in Vietnam — measured coffin by coffin.

Former Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke has spoken out against the ban. “I think if you are going to sign pieces of paper saying that young people are going to put their lives at risk, that young people are going to die for important causes, then we should be willing to let people see what happens and the kinds of terrible things that can happen in conflict. I think that is being very straight with the American people,” Clarke told CNN last week.

Lt. Olivia Nelson, Dover Air Force Base spokeswoman, told Newsweek last week that letting the media onto the bases to film the “dignified transfer of remains” wouldn’t show proper reverence for the dead. The transfer is not a ceremonial one, Nelson said, even though the flag-covered casket is carried by an official honor guard.

The Pentagon’s public relations campaign might not seem as transparent if it were not coupled with another Pentagon policy — embedded reporters.

In March and April, major combat dominated television news coverage via choppy and blurry videophone. Life on the front lines never had been so vivid before, thanks to journalists who were side-by-side with American soldiers in Fallujah, Basra, Mosul and the hundreds of miles of sand in between.

The Pentagon’s policy is clearly a distortion of reality. If the American public can be trusted by the government to view major combat, they should have the opportunity to see those who serve overseas return home after paying the ultimate price for their country.