Unlike most people, I don’t subscribe to the idea that war photography does anything to prevent wars. But lots of other people, incl. maybe the Bush government, think otherwise: “The government has blocked the press from soldiers’ funerals at Arlington National Cemetery. The government has prevented the press from taking pictures of the caskets that arrive day after day at the Dover Air Force Base military mortuary in Delaware, the world’s largest funeral home. And the government, by inferring that citizens who question its justifications for this war are disloyal Americans, has intimidated a compliant press from making full use of pictures of the dead and wounded. Also worth noting: President Bush’s latest rationale for the war is that he is trying to ‘spread democracy’ through the world. He says these new democracies must have a ‘free press.’ Yet he says all this while continuing to restrict and limit the American press. There’s a huge disconnect here.” - full story

PS: I think the main/sole reason for the Bush government to ban all those photos is to make the photos not interfere with their narrative about the “war on terror”, fought by “heroes”, where only terrorists are being killed. As we have seen during the build-up of the latest Iraq war, pushing a democratic country into a mindless frenzy for war is fairly easy - even if the same country had just gone through a very similar experience (from which it has learned absolutely nothing).