Photo courtesy of Zoriah

In another case of the government trying to sanitize war, photographer Zoriah Miller lost his embedded status when he published photos of dead soldiers on his blog.

From an article in PDN Online, the military claimed Zoriah published photos of casualties of a suicide bombing in the Iraqi province of  Anbar before the marines’ families were notified, which is against their rules. Zoriah, who goes by his first name professionally, says he did no such thing, publishing them on June 30, four days after the June 26 attack and after he’d heard the families were notified.

The military told him that his posting had “supplied the enemy with information on the effectiveness of attack.” To which Zoriah said that he didn’t provide any information the enemy didn’t already have access to from the New York Times, Reuters, et al. — and no soldier was identifiable from his photos. He says military officials even went so far as to try to get him blacklisted so that he’d be unable to ever embed again, although since then it’s been determined that he can keep his credentials.

A military spokesman claims he was sent home because  “the unit commander lost faith and confidence with Mr. Miller and his ability to remain within the ground rules.” 

Zoriah says:

“They embedded a war photographer, and when I took a photo of war, they disembedded me. It’s as if it’s okay to take pictures of them handing lollipops to kids on the street and providing medical care, but photographing the actual war is unacceptable.”

Article from PDN Online.

See Zoriah’s Anbar Province attack post here.